Call number E487 .V57 1903 (UNC-CH, Davis Library)

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BEING A RECORD OF THE ACTUAL EXPERIENCES
OF THE WIFE OF A CONFEDERATE OFFICER

MYRTA LOCKETT AVARY

NEW YORK
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
1903

INTRODUCTION

THIS history was told over the tea-cups.
One winter, in the South, I had for my neighbor
a gentle, little brown-haired lady, who
spent many evenings at my fireside, as I at
hers, where with bits of needlework in our
hands we gossiped away as women will. I
discovered in her an unconscious heroine, and
her Civil War experiences made ever an interesting
topic. Wishing to share with others
the reminiscences she gave me, I seek to present
them here in her own words. Just as
they stand, they are, I believe, unique, possessing
at once the charm of romance and
the veracity of history. They supply a graphic,
if artless, picture of the social life of one
of the most interesting and dramatic periods
of our national existence. The stories were
not related in strict chronological sequence,
but I have endeavored to arrange them in

that way. Otherwise, I have made as few
changes as possible. Out of deference to the
wishes of living persons, her own and her
husband's real names have been suppressed
and others substituted; in the case of a few
of their close personal friends, and of some
whose names would not be of special historical
value, the same plan has been followed.

Those who read this book are admitted
to the sacred councils of close friends, and
I am sure they will turn with reverent fingers
these pages of a sweet and pure woman's life
- a life on which, since those fireside talks
of ours, the Death-Angel has set his seal.

Memoirs and journals written not because
of their historical or political significance, but
because they are to the writer the natural expression
of what life has meant to him in the
moment of living, have a value entirely apart
from literary quality. They bring us close to
the human soul - the human soul in undress.
We find ourselves without preface or apology
in personal, intimate relation with whatever
makes the yesterday, to-day, to-morrow of the writer. When
this current of events and conditions is impelled
and directed by a vital

and formative period in the history of a nation,
we have only to follow its course to see what
history can never show us, and what fiction can
unfold to us only in part - how the people thought,
felt, and lived who were not making history, or
did not know that they were.

This is the essential value of A Virginia Girl in
the Civil War: it shows us simply, sincerely, and
unconsciously what life meant to an American
woman during the vital and formative period of
American history. That this American woman
was also a Virginian with all a Virginian's love for
Virginia and loyalty to the South, gives to her
record of those days that are still "the very fiber
of us" a fidelity rarely found in studies of local
color. Meanwhile, her grateful affection for the
Union soldiers, officers and men, who served and
shielded her, should lift this story to a place
beyond the pale of sectional prejudice.

A VIRGINIA GIRL IN
THE CIVIL WAR

CHAPTER I

HOME LIFE IN A SOUTHERN
HARBOR

MANY years ago I heard a prominent
lawyer of Baltimore, who had just returned from
visit to Charleston, say that the Charlestonians
were so in the habit of antedating everything with
the Civil War that when he commented to one of
them upon the beauty of the moonlight on the
Battery, his answer was, "You should have seen
it before the war." I laughed, as everybody else
did; but since then I have more than once caught
myself echoing the sentiment of that Charleston
citizen to visitors who exclaimed over the social
delights of Norfolk. For really they know nothing
about it - that is, about the real Norfolk.

Nobody does who can not remember, as I do,
when her harbor was covered with shipping
which floated flags of all nations, and her society
was the society of the world. Milicent and
I - there were only the two of us - were as
familiar with foreign colors as with our own Red,
White, and Blue, and happily grew up
unconscious that a title had any right of
precedence superior to that of youth, good
breeding, good looks, and agreeability. That all of
these gave instant way to the claims of age was
one of the unalterable tenets handed down from
generation to generation, and punctiliously
observed in our manner and address to the older
servants. The "uncle" and "aunty" and "mammy"
that fall so oddly upon the ears of the
present generation were with Southern children
and young people the "straight and narrow" path
that separated gentle birth and breeding from the
vulgar and ignorant.

My girlhood was a happy one. My father
was an officer of the Bank of Virginia, and,
according to the custom that obtained, he lived
over the bank. His young assistant, Walter H.
Taylor (afterward adjutant to

General R. E. Lee), was like a brother to
Milicent and me. Father's position and means,
and the personal charm that left him and my
mother cherished memories in Norfolk till to-day,
drew around us a cultivated and cosmopolitan
society. Our lives were made up of dance and
song and moonlit sails. There were the Atlantic
Ocean, the Roads, the bay, the James and
Elizabeth rivers, meeting at our very door. And
there were admirals, commodores, and captains
whose good ships rode these waters, and who
served two sovereign - the nation whose flag
they floated and a slim Virginia maiden. In all the
gatherings, formal and informal, under our roof,
naval and military uniforms predominated. Many
men who later distinguished themselves in the
Federal and Confederate armies, sat around our
board and danced in our parlors; others holding
high places in Eastern and European courts were
numbered among our friends and acquaintances.

Some years after Commodore Perry through
a skilful mixture of gunpowder and diplomacy
had opened the ports of Japan to the commerce
of all nations, Ito and Inouye

- not then counts - had brought into existence
an organized Japanese navy which sailed
out of these same ports to the harbors of the
world on tours of inspection. One of my most
vivid memories is of the Japanese squadron
which lay at anchor in our harbor, of the
picturesque dress and manners of these Eastern
strangers, and the polished courtesy of the two
men whose names are now a part
of history.

But the handsomest sailors I ever saw were
the Prussians. When the Prussian navy was in its
infancy two Prussian vessels, the frigate Gaefion
and a corvette, dropped anchor in Norfolk harbor;
they, too, were visiting the ports of different
nations on tours of inspection. All the officers on
these vessels, including the midshipmen, were
noblemen, and all of them were magnificent-
looking men. Then, too, their brilliant uniforms
and the state and ceremony with which they
invested every-day life made them altogether
charming to a young, romantic girl. I shall never
forget how they used to enter the room. They
would appear in full regimentals, march in military
form, the frigate's captain in command,

and salute Milicent before they permitted
themselves to talk, dance, and sing. Upon leaving,
the same order was observed. They went out
into the hall, donned their hats, sword-belts, and
swords, returned, saluted, and withdrew in
military form. At this time I was a little girl who
played on the piano for grown-up people to
dance. On formal occasions we had military
bands, but for the every-evening dance my
playing did well enough. When the Prussians
were our guests, one of them always sat by me
while I played. Baron von der Golz, since
Admiral of the German navy, was the gentleman
who was oftenest kind enough to turn over my
music. I play now, for my children to dance, a
Prussian galop he taught me, with some of the
music I played for those officers, and some
which they used to play when they took my place
at the piano that I might have my share of the
dancing. Another Prussian officer of whom I
was very fond was Count van Monts, afterward
Admiral of the German navy, Von der Golz
succeeding at his death.

I shall never forget the day my Prussian
friends sailed away. From the roof of our

residence over the bank, there was a good view of
the harbor and river: Milicent, Emily Conway, and a
number of girls who wanted to see the last of the
gallant, handsome Prussians went up on the roof,
and I was permitted to go with them. We turned our
spy-glasses on their ships as they sailed toward
Hampton Roads, and there were our friends on
deck, their glasses turned upon the housetop where
we stood in the full glare of the midday sun. Even I
was visible to them. Milicent placed me in front of
our spy-glass, and I looked through and singled out
Baron von Golz, to whom I waved my handkerchief
vigorously. A little snow-storm fluttered on the deck,
and the baron not only waved, but saluted.
According to the fashion of the time, young ladies
wore low-necked dresses in the middle of the
day - never, however, at any hour, so low as ladies
at the opera wear them now. Milicent and her
friends who went to the housetop were bare-
necked, and the sun blistered their throats and
shoulders; and mother had to bathe Milicent with
buttermilk all the afternoon to make her presentable
for the dance that night, which, by special permission,

Count von Monts attended, coming up from
Fortress Monroe to escort Milicent. They made a
pretty picture when they danced their last dance
together. The Count would not permit their
friendship to cease with that last dance, and a
correspondence was long kept up between them.
At parting, she gave him her little Catholic prayer-
book with her name on the fly-leaf, and years
after, when revisiting Norfolk, he had that prayer-
book and tried to find her; but times were
changed, and Norfolk no more our home. Many
a titled sailor sought my sister's favor, but in our
day Virginia's daughters, undazzled by coronets,
were content to wed Virginia's sons.

The almost limitless hospitality of those days
made all the sharper the distinction between "open house"
and open hand. In the forties, the reserve of the American
girl was more like that of her English sister than it is
at the present day. Society did not sanction the freedom
which it countenances now. The gentlewoman of the
old South was a past mistress in the art of tact, but
had little knowledge or practice in it to further her own

private ends. Its office, as she understood it, was
to relieve painful situations not her own, to
contribute to the comfort and pleasure of others.
To rid herself of a disagreeable third person to
secure a tête-à-tête with a lover was not within its
province. Lovers had to make their own
opportunities - indeed it was not her part even to
conceive that they wanted to make opportunities.
Taking all this into consideration, the freedom
with which Southern children entered into the
social life must have often made them thorns in
the flesh of their elders. I have often wondered
since those happy days if my favorites among my
sister's visitors did not find me a great nuisance in
spite of the caresses they lavished upon me.

The New Year's reception of that period was not
an afternoon and evening affair. It began in the
morning and lasted all day; it meant pretty girls
fluttering in laces and ribbons and feathers and
sparkling with jewel and smiles; stately matrons who,
however beautiful and young they were, never
indulged even in the innocent coquetry that
neither deceives a man nor wounds a woman

- the married belle was unknown to Virginia;
and gallant men, young and old, ready to
die for them or live for them; it meant the
good things to eat for which Virginia is
famous, and, I am sorry to say, often more
than enough of good things to drink. I remember
one of these New Year's days when the ardor of
my affections prevented a young officer who had
come to bid us good-by from exchanging a word
with anybody unhampered by my close attendance.
I was brimful of nine-year-old love for him. I
proposed to him and was promptly accepted; I
made him drink punch with me dipped from the old
punch-bowl that had been presented to father
by the military companies of Norfolk, and I
told him how Admiral Tucker had made the
presentation with flags flying and bands playing
and wine flowing, and how the admiral
tried to ride his horse up the front steps into
the house, and how the sober animal wisely
and firmly refused to perfom the feat
Through a long day he did not once
escape me. This young officer was Lieutenant
John L. Worden. He was one of the gallant
"boys in blue" who made my sister's girlhood

happy. A most charming gentleman he
was, and everybody in my father's house loved
him.

Another young sailor - the handsomest of
them all, whom everybody in my father's house
loved - was Captain Warren. How well I
remember that evening when the order came
bidding him report at once to his ship, which was
to set forth on a long cruise in Eastern waters!
Shall I ever forget the look in his eyes as he
turned them upon Milicent! How beautiful she
was that night! How gracious and sweet, how
greatly to be desired! And how many desired
her!

Milicent had been married several years and
I was in the raptures of my first winter in society
when my father died, and mother decided that
we should leave Norfolk - Norfolk where river
and bay and ocean had sung our cradle-songs -
and go to Petersburg to live. In this day
of independent women it sounds absurd to say
that it was scarcely considered wise or delicate
for women to live without the protection of a
male relative in the house, and to add that as far
as possible they were shielded from the burden
of business responsibilities.

Uncle Henry considered it imperative
that we should be under his care; he could not
come to Norfolk, so we went to him. We could
scarcely have been strangers anywhere in
Virginia, and in Petersburg we had many friends.
The Lees and the Randolphs, the Pegrams and
the Pages, the Stringfellows, the Hamiltons, the
Witherspoons, the Bannisters, the Donnans, the
Dunlops, and a score of others made it easy to
exercise the genius for friendship which in
Virginia hands down that relation from
generation to generation.

It was in Petersburg that my trousseau was
made. Much of it was the work and embroidery
of loving, light-hearted girls whose feet were set
to music and dancing, and most of it was worn
by women who trod instead fields red with the
blood of their friends and kinsmen. During the
long, dreary years in which the Northern ports
were closed, and the South clothed itself as best
it could, or went in rags, that trousseau constituted
my sole outfit, and it reinforced the wardrobes
of some comrades in war and want.

I had heard that before. Indeed, I had heard
a great deal about Dan Grey that made me long
to get even with him. Everybody had a way of
speaking as if Petersburg wasn't Petersburg with
Dan Grey left out.

"You ought to meet Dan Grey," Charlie
repeated.

"I don't think so," I rapped out. "I
think I can get along very nicely without
meeting Dan Grey" - Dan Grey seemed to

be getting along very nicely without meeting
me - "I know as many nice men now as I have
time to see."

So I dismissed Dan, whipped up my horse,
and raced Charlie along the old Jerusalem Plank
Road - that historic thoroughfare by which the
Union troops first threatened Petersburg, and
near which Fort Hell and Fort Damnation are still
visible. We ran our horses past the old brick
church, built of bricks brought from England to
erect a place of worship for the aristocratic
colonists, past the quiet graves in Blandford; and
turning our horses into Washington Street,
slackened their pace and, chatting merrily the
while, rode slowly into the city toward the golden
sunset. A few years later I was to run along this
street in abject terror from bursting shells.

"You ought to meet Dan Grey."

It came from George Van B - this
time. George was the poet laureate of our
set. Afterward he was Colonel Van B - ,
and as gallant a soldier as ever faced shot
and shell. I had been playing an accompaniment
for him; he was singing a popular ditty

of the day, "Sweet Nellie is by my Side"; I
wheeled around on the piano-stool and faced
him.

"What is the matter with that man? He
must be a curiosity?"

"He is just the nicest fellow in town,"

George asserted with mingled resentment and
amusement.

"He must be something extraordinary. One
would think there was just one man in town
and that his name was Dan Grey."

Before the week was out I heard it again.
This time it was Willie. He spoke oracularly, and
as if he were broaching an original idea. Page,
the best dancer in our set, repeated the
recommendation, looking as if I were quite out of
the swim in not knowing Dan Grey. (If Governor -
reads this chapter, will he please overlook the
familiar use of his name? Boys and girls who
have played mumble-peg together and
snowballed each other, do not attach handles to
each other's names until they are more
thoroughly grown up than we were then.)

"I am sure it must be my duty to meet Dan
Grey," I said gravely. "I am continually

being told that I 'ought to meet Dan Grey'
just as I might be told that I ought to go to
church."

"Dan isn't a bit like a church, Nell," laughed
Willie. "But he is a splendid fellow, generous to
a fault - and then, you know, Dan is the
handsomest man in town."

"Oh, no!" I retorted, "I left the handsomest
man in town in Norfolk."

I can't begin to tell how terribly tired I got of
"You ought to meet Dan Grey," "Haven't you met
Dan Grey?" Evidently Dan Grey was in no hurry
to meet me. I knew that he was the toast of our
set and that he ignored me as completely as if I
were not in it - and I had never been ignored
before. I also knew, without being continually
told, that he was a broad-shouldered,
magnificent-looking fellow, fair-haired, blue-eyed,
and "the handsomest man in town." My girl
friends talked about him almost as much as the
men did. And I did not even know the lion! I took
great pains not to want to know him. I impressed
it upon Willie and Charlie and George and the
rest that they were not to bring Dan Grey to see
me.

"Why, what will we say if he asks us to
bring him? You are unreasonable, Nell. How did
you ever pick up such a prejudice against Dan?
Nobody can object to Dan Grey. If he asks any
of us to bring him, I don't know what we can do."

"Oh, of course you can't be rude. If you are
asked to bring him, you will have to do as you
are asked, but I don't think you will be asked. I'm
sure I hope you won't, for I have heard of Dan
Grey until I am sick of the very name."

Meanwhile I resolved privately if I ever did
lay my hands on Dan Grey I would wreak a full
vengeance. He says that I have done it.

A Catholic fair was to be held in Petersburg,
but as dearly as we loved Father Mulvey (all
Petersburg loved him), and as much as we
longed to do everything possible for our poor little
Church of St. Joseph, we could not go to the fair
rooms and sell things and make merry. We were
in deep mourning; mother said that our going was
out of the question. Then her old friend, Mrs.
Winton, came out to persuade and convince.

"I really can not let the girls go," mother
protested. "They can make fancy articles and
send them to the fair, or do any home work that
you can put them to; we are willing to help just
as much as we can. I will send pickled oysters
and shrimp salad after my Norfolk recipes, and
cake and cream and anything you like that I can
make."

"We want the oysters and the salad and the
cake and everything else you choose to send, but
above all things we want the girls. I didn't come
here for your pickled oysters and shrimp salad, if
they are the best I ever tasted. I want Milicent
and Nell - I want Nell for my booth and Milicent
for Mrs. Lynn's. Mrs. Lynn has set her heart on
Milicent - but, there! Mrs. Lynn may do her own
begging. Do let me have Nell."

"My dear, I don't see how I can."

"Oh, you must! We really need them. You
know how few girls there are in our little
congregation."

Mother was too good a Catholic not to
yield - Milicent and I were given over to the
cause of St. Joseph's.

But work is fun when you are young enough,
and there was plenty of both in getting the booths
ready. The old Library Hall on Bollingbrook
Street was a gay and busy scene for several
days before it was formally opened to the public
who came to spend money and make merry.

On one never-forgotten morning the hall was
filled with matrons and maidens weaving
festoons of pine-beard, running cedar, and ivy. I
had purposely donned my worst dress, and was
sitting on the floor Turkish fashion, with
evergreens heaped around me, when I saw a
party of gentlemen entering the hall.

I tried to sink out of sight, but they saw me,
demolished my barricade, and began to tease me.
The quartet were Charlie Murray, George Van
B - , Willie, and Page. Behind them came a fifth
gentleman, and

before this fifth gentleman and I knew what was
happening we were being presented to each
other. And that is how I met Dan Grey - sitting
on the floor in my shabbiest dress and half
hidden by evergreens. I soon had the whole
party hard at work festooning the hall, and what
a good, if late, laborer, Dan Grey made in my
vineyard!

"You see how useful I am," he said - he
was standing on a box and I was handing up
wreaths of cedar which he was arranging on the
wall. "Now, why didn't you let me come to see
you?"

"Me?" I asked in utter bewilderment.

"Yes, 'me'!"

"Why, I never had a thing to do with your
not coming to see me."

He gave George, Charlie, and Willie a
withering look.

"I reckon somebody else didn't want me to."

The boys looked dumfounded.

"I heard," said Dan from his box, "that you
didn't want me to come to see you, that you had
an unaccountable prejudice against me because
you didn't like Dick, that you

"Why," I said, "you are not your brother
Dick. And then, I don't dislike Dick at all."

Again the trio looked at me as if they
doubted the evidence of their senses.

"Nell, what did you tell such a story for?"
George asked me privately later.

"Why, I didn't tell any story at all," I
declared. "He isn't his brother Dick, is he? And I
don't dislike Dick now."

The night of the fair I wore a black
bombazine, cut low in the neck and with long
angel sleeves falling away from my arms above
the elbow to the hem of my dress, and around
my neck a band of black velvet with a black
onyx cross. I sat or stood behind Mrs. Winton's
booth, and Mr. Grey haunted the booth all the
evening, and bought quantities of things he had
no use for.

After the fair he saw me or reminded me of
his existence in some way every day. Mother
took me, about this time, on a visit to some
cousins in Birdville, and every day Mr.

Grey rode out on Dare Devil, the horse that he
was to ride into his first fight. There was another
fair. I went in from Birdville to help, and had the
same coterie of assistants. "Ben Bolt" was a
great favorite then. It was a new song and
divided honors with "Sweet Nellie is by my
Side." My assistants used to sit on a goods box
that was later to be converted into an ornamental
stand, and sing, "O don't you Remember Sweet
Alice, Ben Bolt?"

Well, to make a long story short - as Dan
and I did - we were married in exactly four
months and a half from the day on which he was
introduced to me as I sat cross-legged among
the evergreens; and when Willie and George and
Charlie came up to congratulate us, every
wretch of them said, "Didn't I tell you you ought
to meet Dan Grey?"

CHAPTER III

THE FIRST DAYS OF THE
CONFEDERACY

SOON after my marriage my brother-in-law
moved to Baltimore, and my mother decided to
go with Milicent and her little boy. I had never
really been separated from them before; I was
only seventeen, a spoiled child, but though I loved
them dearly, after the first I scarcely missed
them. I had my husband, and ah! how happy we
were - how glad we both were that I had met
Dan Grey!

We did not go to housekeeping at once. In
the first place, I did not know anything about
housekeeping and I didn't want Dan to find it out;
in the second place, we wanted to look around
before we settled upon a house; and in the third,
and what was to me the smallest place, the
country was in a very unsettled condition.

The question of State's rights and secession
was being pressed home to Virginia.

The correspondence between the commission at
Washington and Mr. Seward was despatched to
Richmond, and Richmond is but twenty miles
from Petersburg. There were mutterings that
each day grew louder, signs and portents that we
refused to believe. Local militia were organizing
and drilling - getting ready to answer the call
should it come. Not that the people seriously
thought that it would come. They believed, as
they hoped, that something would be done to
prevent war; that statesmen, North and South,
would combine to save the Union; that, at any
rate, we should be saved from bloodshed. As for
those others who prophesied and prayed for it,
who wanted the vials of God's wrath uncorked,
they got what they wanted. Their prayers were
answered; the land was drenched in blood. But
for the most of us - the Virginians whom I
knew - we did not, we would not believe that
brothers could war with brothers.

Then something happened that drove the
truth home to our hearts. The guns of Sumter
spoke - war was upon us. But not for long; the
differences would be adjusted.

Sumter fell, Virginia seceded. Still we befooled
ourselves. There would be a brief campaign,
victory, and peace. North and South, we looked
for anything but what came - those four long
years of bloody agony; North and South were
each sure of victory. In Virginia, where the
courage and endurance of starving men were to
stand the test of weary months and years, we
scoffed at the idea that there would be any real
fighting. If there should be, for Virginia who had
never known the shadow of defeat, defeat was
impossible.

I couldn't speak for tears. I felt how hard his
heart beat against mine.

"Poor wife!" he said, "poor little child!"

When I spoke, I felt as if I were tearing my
heart out by the roots.

"I - I - must - let - you - go!"

"That is my own brave girl. Never mind,
Nell, I will make you proud of your soldier!"

"Oh, Dan! Dan!" I sobbed, "I don't want to
be proud of you! I just don't want you to get
hurt! I don't want you to go if I could help
it - but I can't! I don't want fame or glory! I
want you!"

He smoothed my hair with slow touches, and
was silent. Then he spoke again, trying to
comfort me with those false hopes all fed on.

"I still doubt if there will be any fighting. But
if there is, I must be in it. I can't be a coward
There! there! Nellie, don't cry! I hope for
peace. The North and the South both want
peace. You will laugh at all of this, Nell, when
we come back from Norfolk without striking a
blow!"

"Dear, I can't. How could you travel around,
with only a knapsack, like a soldier?"

"Try me. I am to be a soldier's wife."

I was swallowing my sobs, sniffling, blowing
my nose, and trying to look brave all at once.
Instead of looking brave, I must have looked very
comical, for Dan burst out laughing. The next
moment we were silent again. The chimes of St.
Paul's rang out upon the air. It was neither
Sabbath nor saint's day. We knew what the bells
were ringing for. Not only St. Paul's chimes, but
the bells of all the churches had become familiar
signals calling us to labor as sacred as worship.
Sewing machines had been carried into the
churches, and the sacred buildings had become
depots for bolts of cloth, linen, and flannel.
Nothing could be heard in them for days but the
click of machines, the tearing of cloth, the
ceaseless murmur of voices questioning, and
voices directing the work. Old and young were
busy. Some were tearing flannel into lengths for
shirts and cutting out havelocks and knapsacks.
And some were tearing linen into strips and rolling
it for bandages ready to the

"I must go make you some clothes," I said,
getting up from Dan's knee.

"But I have plenty," he said.

"It doesn't matter. I must make you some
more - like the others."

Before the war was over I had learned to
make clothes out of next to nothing, but that
morning, except for fancy work, I had never
sewed a stitch in my life. I could embroider
anything from an altar cloth to an initial in the
corner of a handkerchief, but to make a flannel
shirt was beyond my comprehension. Make it,
however, I could and would. I ever hinted to
Dan that I didn't know how, or I was determined
that nobody but me should make his army
shirts - I must sew them with my own fingers. I
went down town and bought the finest, softest
flannel I could find. Then I was at my wits' ends.
I looked at the flannel and I looked at the scissors.
Time was flying. I picked up my flannel and ran
to consult my neighbor, Mrs. Cuthbert. She showed
me how to cut and fashion my shirts, and I made

"I'm a soldier's wife," I said with a mighty
effort to look it. "I can travel with a
knapsack - and," with a sob, "I can - keep
- from crying."

"I'm going to have you with me if possible.
There! little wife, don't cry, or you'll make a fool
of me. Be brave, Nell. That's it! I'm proud of
you."

But there was a tremor in his voice all the
same. He put me gently away from him and
went out, and I lay down on the sofa and cried as
if my heart would break. But not for long.
Captain Jeter's wife came for me; her eyes were
red with weeping, but she was trying to smile.
We were to go to the public leave-taking - there
would be time enough for tears afterward.
Everybody was on the streets to see the troops
go off, and I took my stand with the others and
watched as the cavalry

rode past us. We kept our handkerchiefs waving
all the time our friends were riding by, and when
we saw our husbands and brothers we tried to
cheer, but our voices were husky. The last thing
I saw of my husband he was wringing the hand
of an old friend who was not going, tears were
streaming down his cheeks and he was saying,
"For God's sake, take care of my wife."

They were gone, all gone, infantry and
cavalry, the flower of the city. But they would
be back in a few days, of that we were sure -
and some of them never came back again.

I was in a city of mourning and dread, but
my own suspense measured by days was not
long, though it seemed an age to me then. A
week had not passed when I got a telegram
from Dan:

"Come to Norfolk. We are camped near
there."

It was near train time when I got it. I
snatched up my satchel, put in a comb and brush
and tooth-brush - not even an extra
handkerchief - and almost ran to the depot. I
could not have carried all my clothes, I know,

for part of them were with the laundress, and
packing a trunk would have taken time; but why
on earth I did not put a few more articles into my
satchel I can not tell. It is a matter of history,
however, that I only took those I have named.
The first thing Dan did was to get
me some handkerchiefs.

"Why, Nell," he said, "you are taking this
thing of being a soldier's wife too seriously."

It was delightful to be in my old home once
more. Friends and kindred crowded around me, the
river and bay and ocean sang my old cradle-songs
to me again, and, above all, Dan was near and
came in from camp as often as he could. Then he
was ordered away to Suffolk, which is twenty
miles from Norfolk, and there, of course, he could
not ride in to see me. But that was not so bad as it
might have been. I could hear from him regularly,
he had not yet been in any actual engagement, my
fears were subsiding, or I was getting accustomed
to them. I had, of course, telegraphed to Petersburg
for my baggage and had made myself as comfortable
as possible. An old uncle had taken it into

it wouldn't be so hard on you if we waited and
sent the telegram just before train time. Your
uncle got one before you did, but we told him not
to tell you till just before train time, and he wired
us back to tell you ourselves, that he couldn't tell
you. Dan is getting all right now - he'll soon get
well, Miss Nell, indeed he will. But the doctor
said I must warn you - Miss Nell, you must be
brave, you see - or I can't tell you at all. The
doctor said I mustn't let you go in there unless
you were perfectly calm. The wound is nothing
at all, Miss Nell."

Poor Jack was almost as unnerved as I was.
He mopped my face with a wet handkerchief,
and made somebody bring me some brandy.

But the words ringing in my head, "A
soldier's wife," pulled me together more than the
brandy, and I made Jack go on.

"It's nothing but his arm. We were out on
vidette duty yesterday and we got shot into. You
see, Miss Nell, you must be brave or I can't tell
you!"

Jack didn't seem to see, but he went on,
looking scared himself all the time.

"The real trouble was Dare Devil. You see,
after Dan's arm got hurt - I wish it had been me
or George who had caught that shot. but, hang
the luck! it was Dan. You know Dare Devil's
old trick - catching the bit in his teeth. Well, he
did that and ran away. Dan held on with his
good arm until that d - d horse (excuse me, Miss
Nell!) wheeled suddenly and dashed into the
woods. The limbs of the trees dragged Dan out
of his saddle, and his foot caught in the stirrup
and Dare Devil dragged him (take some brandy,
Miss Nell) until the strap broke. We picked Dan
up insensible; he was delirious all night, and we
thought for a time that he was done for, but,
thank God! he's all right now. I hate to tell you,
Miss Nell, but - you'll see how his head is - and
the doctor said we mustn't let you go in if you
couldn't be calm."

They didn't know what to do with me, poor
fellows. They begged me not to cry, and then
they said crying would do me good, and I had
four pairs of broad shoulders to cry on. They
were all as gentle and pitiful with me as a
mother is with a baby. One of them got out his
nice fresh handkerchief and wiped my eyes with
it. I had come off the second time without a
change of handkerchiefs, and this time without
even a tooth-brush. When I had cried my trouble
out and was quite calm, I told them I was ready
to go to my husband. They took me to the door
and I went in quietly, and seeing that he was
awake, bent over him.

"I am here, Dan," I said smiling.

He tried to smile back.

"Take my head in your hands, Nell," he
whispered, "and turn it so I can kiss you."

I laid my hands softly and firmly on each side
of his head and turned it on the pillow. As I did
so, a quantity of sand fell away.

I don't know whether his head had been
properly dressed or not, but I know that for

a number of days the sand fell away from it
whenever I took it into my hands to turn it.

"After I fell," he told me, when he was
allowed to talk, "my head was in the dirt, of
course, and it was beat first against one tree and
then against another. When I felt my senses
leaving me, I clasped my arms tight around my
head. I don't know how I managed it, but I got
hold of my crippled arm with my good one, and
when I was picked up my arms were locked in
some way about my head. That is all that saved
me."

I took the law into my own hands. Before
Dan got well Dare Devil had been shot.

CHAPTER IV

THE REALITIES OF
WAR

WHEN Dan recovered I returned to
Norfolk, and there I stayed for some time,
getting letters from him, taking care of uncle and
developing a genius for housekeeping. One day I
was out shopping when I saw everybody running
toward the quay. I turned and went with the
crowd. We saw the Merrimac swing out of the
harbor - or did she crawl? A curious looking
craft she was, that first of our ironclads, ugly
and ominous.

She had not been gone many hours when the
sound of guns came over the water followed by
silence, terrible silence, that lasted until after the
lamps were lit. Suddenly there was tumultuous
cheering from the quay. The Merrimac had
come home after destroying the Cumberland
and the Congress.

"Well for the Congress!" we said. Her
commander had eaten and drunk of Norfolk's

hospitality, and then had turned his guns upon
her - upon a city full of his friends. Bravely
done, O Merrimac! But that night I cried myself
to sleep. Under the sullen waters of Hampton
Roads slept brave men and true, to whom Stars
and Stripes and Southern Cross alike meant
nothing now. The commander of the Congress
was among the dead, and he had been my
friend - I had danced with him in my father's
house. Next day, the Monitor met the Merrimac
and turned the tide of victory against us. Her
commander was John L. Worden, who had been
our guest beloved.

During all this time I had been separated
from my husband. He had been detailed to make
a survey of Pig Point and the surrounding
country, and it was not until he reached
Smithfield that he sent for me. We were
beginning now to realize that war was upon us in
earnest. There was the retreat from Yorktown;
Norfolk was evacuated troops were moving.
Everything was bustle and confusion. My
husband went off with his command, the order
for departure so sudden that he had not time
to plan for me.

As Northern troops began to occupy the
country, fearing that I would be left in the
enemy's lines and so cut off from getting to him,
I took the matter into my own hands and went in
a covered wagon to Zuni, twenty miles distant,
where I had heard that his command was
encamped for a few days. After a rough ride I
got there only to find that my husband had
started off to Smithfield for me. We had passed
each other on the road, each in a covered
wagon. There was nothing to do except to wait
his return that night.

As my husband's command had been ordered
to join the troops at Seven Pines, I took the train
for Richmond the next day, stopped a few hours,
and then went to Petersburg. When I got there
the Battle of Seven Pines was on. For two days
it raged - for two days the booming of the
cannon sounded in our ears and thundered at our
hearts. Friends gathered at each other's houses
and looked into each other's faces and held each
other's hands, and listened for news from the
field. And the sullen boom of the cannon broke in
upon us, and we would start and shiver as if it
had shot us, and sometimes

the tears would come. But the bravest of us got
so we could not weep. We only sat in silence or
spoke in low voices to each other and rolled
bandages and picked linen into lint. And in those
two days it seemed as if we forgot how to smile.

Telegrams began to come; a woman would
drop limp and white into the arms of a
friend - her husband was shot. Another would
sit with her hand on her heart in pallid silence
until her friends, crowding around her, spoke to
her, tried to arouse her, and then she would
break into a cry:

"O my son! my son!"

There were some who could never be
roused any more; grief had stunned and
stupefied them forever, and a few there were
who died of grief. One young wife, who had just
lost her baby and whose husband perished in the
fight, never lifted her head from her pillow.
When the funeral train brought him home we
laid her in old Blandford beside him, the little
baby between.

Now and then when mothers and sisters
were bewailing their loss and we were pressing
comfort upon them, there would be a

whisper, and one of us would turn to where
some poor girl sat, dumb and stricken, the secret
of her love for the slain wrenched from her by
the hand of war. Sometimes a bereaved one
would laugh!

The third day, the day after the battle, I
heard that Dan was safe. Every day I had
searched the columns of "Killed and Wounded"
in the Richmond Despatch for his name, and had
thanked God when I didn't find it. But direct
news I had none until that third day. The strain
had been too great; I fell ill. Owing to the
general's illness at this time his staff was ordered
to Petersburg, and Dan, who was engineer upon
the staff, got leave to come on for a day or two
in advance of the other members of it; but while
I was still at death's door he was ordered off.
When I at last got up, I had to be taught to walk
as a child is taught, step by step; and before I
was able to join my husband many battles had
been fought in which he took part. I was at the
breakfast-table, when, after months of weary
waiting, he telegraphed me to come to Culpeper
Court-house.

necessary articles, putting in heavy dresses
and winter flannels. The winter does not
come early in Petersburg; the weather was
warm when I started, and I decided to travel
in a rather light dress for the season. I did
not trouble myself with hand-baggage not
even a shawl. The afternoon train would put
me in Richmond before night; I would stop
over until morning, and that day's train
would leave me in Culpeper. Just before I
started, Mr. Sampson, at whose house I was
staying, came in and said that an old friend
of his was going to Richmond on my train
and would be glad to look after me. I assented
with alacrity. Before the war it was
not the custom for ladies to travel alone, and,
besides this, in the days of which I write
traveling was attended with much confusion
and many delays. I reached the depot a few
minutes before train time, my escort was presented
and immediately took charge of me.
He was a nice-looking elderly gentleman,
quite agreeable, and with just a slight odor
of brandy about him. He saw me comfortably
seated, and went to see after our baggage,
he said. He did not return at once,

but I took it for granted that he was in the
smoking-car. Traveling was slower then than
now. Half-way to Richmond I began to wonder
what had become of my escort. But my head
was too full of other things to bother very much
about it. The outlook from the car window along
that route is always beautiful; and then, the next
day I was to see Dan. Darkness, and across the
river the lights of Richmond flashed upon the
view. Where was my escort? I had noticed on the train that
morning a gentleman who wore the uniform of a
Confederate captain and whom I knew by sight.
He came up to me now.

"Excuse me, madam, but can I be of any
assistance to you? I know your husband quite
well."

accident. The old gentleman got off to get a
drink and the train left him."

I could not help laughing.

"If you will allow me, madam," said my new
friend, "I will see you to your hotel. How about
your baggage?"

"Oh!" I cried in dismay, "Mr. C - has my
trunk-check in his pocket."

My new friend considered. "If he comes on
the next train, perhaps that will be in time to
get your trunk off with you to Culpeper. If not,
your trunk will follow you immediately. I'll see
the conductor and do what I can. I'm going out
of town to-morrow, but Captain Jeter is here and
I'll tell him about your trunkcheck. He'll be sure
to see Mr. C - ."

I was to see Dan the next day, and nothing
else mattered. I made my mind easy about that
trunk, and my new friend took me to the
American, where I spent the evening very
pleasantly in receiving old acquaintances and
making new ones.

But with bedtime another difficulty arose: I
had never slept in a room at a hotel by myself in
my life. Fortunately, Mrs. Hopson, of Norfolk,
happened to be spending the

night there. I sent up a note asking if I might
sleep with her, and went up to her room half an
hour later prepared for a delightful talk about
Norfolk. When we were ready for bed, she took
up one of her numerous satchels and put it down
on the side where I afterward lay down to sleep.

"I put that close by the bed because it
contains valuables," she said with an impressive
solemnity I afterward understood.

Of course I asked no questions, though she
referred to the valuables several times. We were
in bed and the lights had been out some time
when I had occasion to ask her where she had
come from there.

"Oh, Nell!" she said, "didn't you know? I've
been to Charlottesville and I've come from there
to-day. Didn't you know about it? John" (her son)
"was wounded. Didn't you know about it? Of
course I had to go to him. They had to perform an
operation on him. I was right there when they did
it." Here followed a graphic account of the
operation. "It was dreadful. You see that satchel
over there?" pointing to the one just beneath my
head on the floor.

"Good gracious!" I cried, and jumped
over her to the other side of the bed.

"Why, what's the matter?" she asked. "You
look like you were scared, Nell. Why, Nell, the
whole of John wouldn't hurt you, much less those
few bones. I'm carrying them home to put them
in the family buryingground. That's the reason I
think so much of that satchel and keep it so close
to me. I don't want John to be buried all about in
different places, you see. But I don't see
anything for you to be afraid of in a few bones.
John's as well as ever - it isn't like he was dead,
now."

I lay down quietly, ashamed of my sudden
fright, but there were cold chills running down
my spine.

After a little more talk she turned over, and I
presently heard a comfortable snore, but I lay
awake a long time, my eyes riveted on the
satchel containing fragments of John. Then I
began to think of seeing Dan in the morning, and
fell asleep feeling how good it was that he was
safe and sound, all his bones

I reached Culpeper Court-house the next
afternoon about four o'clock. Dan met me
looking tired and shabby, and as soon as he had
me settled went back to camp.

"I'll come to see you as often as I can get
leave," he said when he told me good-by. "We
may be quartered here for some time - long
enough for us to get ourselves and our horses
rested up, I hope; but I'm afraid I can't see much
of you. Hardly worth the trouble of your coming,
is it, little woman?"

"Oh, Dan, yes," I said cheerfully; "just so
you are not shot up! It would be worth the
coming if I only got to see you through a car
window as the train went by."

A few days after my arrival a heavy snow
storm set in. As my trunk had not yet come, I
was still in the same dress in which I had left
Petersburg, and, though we were all willing
enough to lend, clothes were so scarce that
borrowing from your neighbor was a last resort.
I suffered in silence for a week before my trunk
arrived, and then it was exchanging one
discomfort for another, for my

flannels were so tight from shrinkage and so
worn that I felt as if something would break
every time I moved.

During this snow-storm the roads were lined
with Confederate troops marching home
footsore and weary from Maryland. Long, hard
marches and bloody battles had been their
portion. In August they had come, after their
work at Seven Pines, Cold Harbor, and Malvern
Hill, to drive Pope out of Culpeper, where he
was plundering. They had driven him out and
pressed after, fighting incessantly. Near
Culpeper there had been the battle of Cedar
Mountain, where Jackson had defeated Pope
and chased him to Culpeper Court-house.
Somewhat farther from Culpeper had been
fought the second battle of Manassas, and,
crowding upon these, the battles of Germantown,
Centreville, Antietam - more than I can
remember to name. Lee's army was back in
Culpeper now with Federal troops at their heels,
and McClellan, not Pope, in command. Civilians,
women, children, and slaves feared Pope;
soldiers feared McClellan - that is, as much as
Lee's soldiers could fear anybody.

I found our tired army in Culpeper trying to
rest and fatten a little before meeting
McClellan's legions. Then - I am not historian
enough to know just how it happened -
McClellan's head fell and Burnside
reigned in his stead. Better and worse for our
army, and no worse for our women and children,
for Burnside was a gentleman even as McClellan
was and as Pope was not, and made no war
upon women and children until the shelling of
Fredericksburg.

CHAPTER V

I MEET BELLE BOYD AND SEE DICK IN A
NEW LIGHT

THE tallow candles were lighted on each side
of my bureau - the time came when I
remembered those two tallow candles as a piece
of reckless and foolish extravagance when there
was a rap at my door and Mrs. Rixey entered to
ask if I would share my room with a lady who
had come unexpectedly. A heavy snow was
falling, and the wind was blowing it into drifts.
The idea of sending anybody out in such weather
was not to be thought of for a moment, so saying
yes I hurried through with my dressing and went
down to the parlor. Mrs. Rixey's house was filled
with Confederates who were there either
because it was near the army or because they
were awaiting an opportunity to run the blockade.
Our evenings were always gay, and when I
entered the parlor this evening

there was as usual a merry party, and, also as
usual, there were several officers of rank in the
room. I was so busy sending messages to mother
and Milicent by a little lady who meant to run the
blockade to Baltimore as soon as possible, that I
did not catch my roommate's name when Mrs.
Rixey introduced her.

She seemed to be nineteen, or, perhaps
twenty - rather young, I thought, to be traveling
alone. True, I was not older, but then I was
married, which made all the difference in the
world. What made her an object of special
interest to every woman present, was that she
was exceedingly well dressed. I had been a
long, long time since we had seen a new dress!
She was a brilliant talker, and soon everybody in
the room was attracted to her, especially the
men. She talked chiefly to the men - indeed, I am
afraid she did not care particularly for the
women - and at first we were a little piqued; but
when we found that she was devoted to The
Cause we were ready to forgive her anything.
She soon let us know that she had come directly
from Washington, where she had been a prisoner

of the United States. She showed us her watch
and told us how the prisoners in Washington had
made the money up among themselves and
presented it to her just before she left. I wish I
had listened better to her account of her prison
life and her adventures; but I was on the outer
rim of the charmed circles, my head was full of
Milicent and mother, Dan was at camp, and I
couldn't see him. I got sleepy, slipped quietly out
of the room, and went upstairs and to bed. My
roommate undressed and got to bed so quickly
that night that I did not wake. The next morning
when the maid came in to make the fire, we
woke up face to face in the same bed, and then
she told me that her name was Belle Boyd, and I
knew for the first time that my bedfellow was
the South's famous female spy. When we got up
she took a large bottle of cologne and poured it
into the basin in which she was going to bathe. It
was the first cologne I had seen for more than a
year, and it was the last I saw until I ran the
blockade.

That day, while we were at dinner, a
servant, behind my chair, whispered:

When I went out into the hallway, there
stood the most abject, pitiable-looking creature
- a soldier, ragged and footsore! He was at
the end of the hall farthest from the dining-room,
and looked as if he didn't wish to attract
attention.

He wore gray trousers patched with blue
- or were they blue patched with gray? - and a
jacket which had as much Federal blue as
Confederate gray in it. From the color
of his uniform, he belonged equally to both armies.
His trousers were much too short for him, and
altogether too small. His shoes were heavy
brogans twice too large for him, and tied on with
strings. He was without socks and his ankles
showed naked and sore between trousers and
shoes. He had on a bedticking shirt, a tobacco-
bag of bedticking hung by a string from a
button of shirt - a button which, by the way,
was doing more than double duty - and an old
slouch hat was pulled over his face.

"You wanted to see me, sir?" I asked
stopping at a short distance from him.

"How do you do, Nell?" he said. "I got
leave to come from camp to see you today. My
company got in from Maryland yesterday."

"Dick!" I cried in amazement; and then I
burst into tears. Dick, our dandy, to look like
this! Laughter mingled with weeping.

"Good gracious, Nell! what is the matter?"
he said.

"Dick, Dick, how you look!"

"Hush, Nell! Good gracious! You'll have
everybody in the dining-room out here to look at
me."

Then I began to beg incoherently that he
would go in and dine with me. I think Dick was
hungry, but he was not that hungry. In his
present garb starvation would not have driven
him into a dining-room where ladies were. He
looked toward the door with abject terror, and
tried to hide himself behind the hat-rack. I was
puzzled to know what I should do with him. As a
young lady was my roommate it was out of the
question to take him to my room, and he positively
refused to go into the parlor. While we debated,

the dining-room door opened and the ladies filed
out into the hall. Unkempt, unshorn patched,
ragged, and dirty, a very travesty of his former
foppish self, Dick went through the introductions
with what grace he might.

Fortunately my friends who surrounded him
were in sympathy with the threadbare
Confederate soldier, and ready to help him to the
extent of their power. One friend, whose
husband had a shirt to spare, gave that to him;
another lady found him a pair of socks some
one else contributed a pair of homespun
drawers. I was drawn aside and consulted as to
the best and most graceful way of conveying
these presents to him. They feared that he might
be wounded and insulted if the matter were not
delicately managed. But Dick was past all that.
He accepted the goods the gods provided in the
spirit in which they were bestowed, and was
radiant with his good luck, and with gratitude to
the fair donors. While we held council he had been
in Mrs. Rixey's and Miss Boyd's hands, and had
had a good dinner.

to camp, Belle Boyd came down the staircase,
carrying a large new blanket shawl.

"You must let me wrap you up, lieutenant,"
she said, putting the shawl around Dick's
shoulders and pinning it together.

Dick blushed and demurred. A shawl like
that was too much - it was a princely gift, a
fortune.

"I can't let you go back to camp in this thin
jacket," she said, "while I have this shawl. It is
serving our country, lieutenant, while it protects
her soldier from the cold. I may need it? No, no,
I can get others where this one came from."

There was nothing for him to do but to
accept it. He looked at me with something of his
old humor in his eyes as he started off.

"I'll be sure to come to see you again; Nell,"
he said.

After he left the house we saw him stoop,
take off his shoes, and walk off with them in his
hands. His feet left marks of blood in the snow.
Shoes had been dealt out to the army only that
morning, and his feet were so sore that his
heavy, ill-fitting brogans were unendurable.

I have heard of many generous deeds like this
done by Belle Boyd. Once, when riding out to
review some troops near Winchester, she met a
soldier, a mere boy, trudging along painfully on his
bare feet. She took off her own shoes and made
him put them on; they were fine cloth gaiters
laced at the side, and trimmed with patent
leather. Some one remonstrated; the shoes would
not last the boy long enough to pay for her
sacrifice.

"Oh," she said, "if it rests his poor young
feet only a little while, I am repaid. He is not old
enough to be away from his mother."

She did not spend another night with us. She
seemed to feel that she had the weight of the
Confederacy on her shoulders, and took the
afternoon train for Richmond.

CHAPTER VI

A FAITHFUL SLAVE AND A HOSPITAL
WARD

Not long after this I had to give up my room
to Governor Bailey of Florida and his family.
They had come on in search of their son, whom
they had for months believed to be dead, and
who, they had only recently learned, was alive
and in the mountains near Culpeper Court-house.

It seems that young Bailey had been shot at
the battle of Cedar Mountain and left on the field
for dead. An old negro, his bodyservant, had
carried him off by stealth to a hut in the woods,
and there, with such simple resources as he had,
had dressed and bandaged the wound. The hut
was a mere shell of a house, a habitation for bats
and owls; it had been unused so long that no
paths led to it, and Uncle Reuben's chief object
in carrying his master there was to hide him from
the Yankees. He had no medicine, no doctor, no

help, the master was ill for a long time from his
wounds and with a slow fever, and through it all
Uncle Reuben never left him except at night to
forage for both. Food in the Confederacy was
far from plentiful, and under the circumstances
almost impossible to get. The hardships they
endured seem inconceivable today. Afraid to
show himself lest in doing so he should turn his
master over into the hands of the dreaded
Yankees, the faithful old servant saw no way of
communicating with the family. He was in a
strange country; he could not leave his charge,
alone and desperately ill, long enough to seek
advice and assistance, and, besides, how was he
to know the friend who would help him from the
man who might betray him? He knew but one
token - the Confederate uniform, and that was
not always to be trusted, for spies wore it.

Confederate troops must have passed near
his hiding-place several times, but in his anxiety
to save his master from the Federals, the negro
hid him from the Confederates as well.

It happened at last that a party of
skirmishers who had frequently deployed along

the obscure roads intersecting the country,
noticed, rising from the depths of the forest, a
thin streak of smoke suggesting deserters or
spies, and began to investigate. So, it happened
that they came upon the hut, and a poor, old, half-
starved negro watching what seemed to be little
more than a human skeleton. When convinced
that his discoverers were really Confederates,
his joy and eagerness knew no bounds.

They gave the negro the rations they had
with them, and the whisky in their canteens -
it was all they had to give except their scant
clothes - and rode on to Culpeper Court house,
where one of them sent the despatch to "Ole
Marster," according to the directions Uncle
Reuben had given. And our Florida party was
"Ole Marster" and his wife, and poor Hugh
Bailey's young wife and her uncle.

with his coat buttoned up to his throat, breathing
stertorously, and moaning. There was a small
black hole in his temple. I thought he must be
uncomfortable with his clothes on, and proposed
to the nurse that we should try to undress him,
but she said he was dying and it would only
disturb him. All that day and until late that night I
stayed with him, changing the towels on his
head, wiping the ooze from his lips, listening to
that agonizing moaning, and thinking of the wife
and mother who could not reach him. About ten
o'clock he seemed to be strangling.

"It's phlegm in his throat," the nurse said.
She ran her finger down his throat, pulling out a
quid of tobacco that had been in his mouth when
he was shot and that had lain there ever since.

He died at midnight, and his mother came the
next day at noon. I don't know which was the
hardest to stand, her first burst of agony or her
endless questions when she could talk.

"He was unconscious," I repeated gently, "and we must be thankful that he was.
If he had been conscious he would have
suffered more."

"Yes, yes; I reckon I am thankful. I don't
know how I am now. But I'm trying to submit
myself to the will of the Lord. Nellie, you don't
know what a sweet baby he was! the prettiest
little fellow! as soon as he could walk, he was
always toddling after me and pulling at my
skirts."

I turned my head away.

"Last night I dozed for a minute and I
dreamed about him. He was my baby again, and
I had him safe in my arms, and there never had
been any war. But I didn't sleep much. I
couldn't come as soon as I got the telegram. I
had to wait for a train. And I was up nearly all
night cooking things to bring him."

She opened her basket and satchel and
showed me. They were full of little cakes and
crackers, wine jellies and blanc-mange, and
other delicacies for the sick.

"Do you think if I had gotten here in time he
could have eaten them?" she asked
wistfully.

"He could not eat anything," I sail choking
back my tears.

"You don't think he was hungry at all Nell?
The soldiers have so little to eat some
times - and I have heard it said that people are
sometimes hungry when they are dying."

"Dear Mrs. Jeter, he looked well and strong
except for the wound. You know the troops had
just returned from the valley where they had
plenty to eat."

"I am glad of that. I was just getting a box
ready to send him full of everything I thought he
would like. And I had some clothes for him. I
began making the clothes as soon as I heard the
troops had come back to Culpeper. You say he
was wounded in the head?"

Neither of us closed our eyes that night. She
walked the floor asking the same questions
over and over again, and I got so I answered
yes or no just as I saw she wanted yes or no and
without regard to the truth.

Jeter's widow. She was surrounded by his little
children - none of them old enough to realize
their loss.

"Nell," she said, "you remember the day in
Petersburg when we stood together and
watched the troops start off for Norfolk - and
everybody was cheering?"

"Yes."

"Well, war does not look to me now as it did
then. God grant it may spare your husband to
you, Nell!"

I shivered.

I called on another widowed friend. Her
husband - a captain, too - had been sent home,
his face mutilated past recognition by the shell
that killed him. Her little ones were around her,
and the captain's sword was hanging on the
wall. When I spoke to her of it as a proud
possession, her eyes filled. His little boy said
with flashing eyes:

"It's my papa's s'ode. I wants to be a man.
An' I'll take it down and kill all the Yankees!"

"H-sh!" his mother put her hand over his
mouth. "God grant there may be no war when
you are a man!" she said fervently.

"Oh, Nell," she said, "when it's all over,
what good will it do? It will just show that one
side could fight better than the other, or had
more money and men than the other. It won't
show that anybody's right. You can't know how
it is until it hits you, Nell I'm proud of him, and
proud of his sword; I wouldn't have had him out
of it all. I wouldn't have had him a coward. But
oh, Nell, I feel that war is wrong! I'm sorry for
every Northern woman who has a circle like this
around her, and a sword like that hanging on her
wall."

The little boy put his arm around her neck.
"Mamma," he said, "are you sorry for the
Yankees?"

"My dear," she said, "I am sorry for all little
boys who haven't got a papa, and I'm sorry for
their mammas. And I don't want you ever to kill
anybody."

CHAPTER VII

TRAVELING THROUGH DIXIE IN WAR
TIMES

OUR troops had to get out of winter
quarters before they were well settled in them. I
am not historian enough to explain how it was,
but the old familiar trip "On to Richmond" had
been started again, Burnside directing it. Every
new Federal commander-in-chief started for
Richmond as soon as he was in command.
There was a popular song called "Richmond is
a Hard Road to Travel." They always found it
so, though they got there eventually.

The cavalry, as usual, were on the wing
first. General Rooney (W. H. F.) Lee's division
was sent to Fredericksburg in November, I
think. My husband, of course, went with it. I
was to go to Richmond and wait until I heard
whether it would be safe for me to join him.

saw many old friends and ran back to
Richmond again, fearful lest a message should
come from Dan and I should miss it, I looked for
a telegram every day, and kept my trunk packed.
It was well that I did.

One morning my door was burst open
unceremoniously and Dan rushed in.

"Ready to go, Nell?"

"Yes."

"Come. Now."

I put on my bonnet, caught up my satchel,
stuffed brush, tooth-brush, and comb into it and
was ready. Dan had stepped into the hall to call a
porter to take the trunk down. We followed it,
jumped into the omnibus, and it rolled off - all
this in about five minutes from the time he burst
my door open. On the omnibus, among other
passengers, was a gentleman who had a brother
in Dan's command. This gentleman had so many
questions to ask about the army, and so many
messages to send his brother that Dan and I
hardly exchanged a dozen sentence before we
were at the depot. He established me in my seat,
got my baggage checked, sat down, and then
exclaiming:

it is much harder to keep up with his
whereabouts than if he were in the infantry."

"What division is he in?"

"General Rooney Lee's."

"Do you know what brigade?"

"Chambliss's."

"All right. I know what to do with you, then.
You stop at Milford. Your husband will come on
the freight this afternoon - at least, that's what I
expect him to do. Your best plan is to wait at
Milford for him."

When we reached Milford the conductor
took me out and introduced me to the landlord of
the tavern, and I was shown into what I suppose
might be called by grace the reception-room. It
was literally on the ground floor, being built on
native brown earth. The ceiling was low, the
room was full of smoke, and rough-looking men
sat about with pipes in their mouths. I asked for
a private room, and was shown into one upstairs,
but this was so cold that I went out into the
porch which overhung the street and walked up
and down in the sun to keep myself warm. Very
soon the gong sounded for dinner. I went down,
sat with a rough

point. Dan's body-servant was to drive the
ambulance back, so the orderly, turning it over to
a man whom he picked up in the tavern, went
back to camp according to instructions. As soon
as he was out of sight I began to repent. If Dan
shouldn't come on that freight, what would I do
with myself and that strange man and the
ambulance and the mules? It was getting late
when the welcome sound of a whistle broke
upon my ear and the freight came creeping in.
On the engine beside the engineer stood my
husband, with that abominable little bundle of
General Lee's in his hand.

"Josh got left somewhere," Dan said of his
servant, "the man will have to drive."

At last we were off, Dan and I sitting
comfortably back in the ambulance. I was very
cold when I first got in, but he wrapped me up
well in the blanket and I snuggled up against him,
and began to tell him how nice and warm he
was, and how thankful I was that there was no
possibility of his getting left from me between
here and camp.

"The orderly said you would." I repeated
the orderly's remark, and Dan laughed.

"He told the truth. I had to do more
swearing to the square inch than I have been
called upon to do for some time. I knew you
didn't even know where you were going, and
that I must get here to-night. As soon as I heard
about the freight, I went to the conductor. He
said passengers couldn't be taken on the
freight, it was against orders. 'I belong to the army
as you see,' I urged, 'I am an officer and it is
important for me to rejoin my command.' He
insisted still that I couldn't go, that it was against
orders. I told him that it was a bundle for
General Lee that had got me left, and I pictured
your predicament in moving colors. He was
obdurate. 'If the freights begin to take
passengers,' he said, 'there would soon be no
room for any other sort of freight on them.' I felt
like kicking him. It was then that I told him that
orders were not made for fools to carry out, and
the swearing began. I threatened to report him.
He looked uneasy and was ready to make
concessions which politeness had not been able
to win, but I

walked off. Evidently, like a mule, he respected
me more for cursing him. I had my plan laid. Just
as the train moved out of the station I swung on
to the engine, and politely introduced myself to
the engineer. He had overheard my conversation
with the conductor - the first part of it, not the
part where the swearing came in - and he
invited me to get off the engine. While we were
debating the engine was traveling. I saw that he
was about to stop it.

"Quick as a flash I had my pistol at his
head.

"'Now,' I said, 'drive on with this engine, or
I'll kill you and run it myself!' I am not telling you
all the words I used, Nell, you'll forgive me this
time, I had to get to you, and honest English is
wasted on fools and mules. 'Hold off!' he said,
'and don't put that d - d thing so close to my
head, and you can ride up here and be d - d to
you.' The invitation was not very polite, but I
accepted it. I gave him some good tobacco, and
we got to be friends before I got off."

The short day was done. I was tired and
warm and sleepy and went to sleep while Dan

was talking. I don't know how long I had dozed
when the driver doubled up suddenly and turned
head over heels backward into my lap. I
struggled from under him, and Dan gave him a
push that helped to free me and at the same time
jumped on to the driver's seat and caught up the
lines.

He gathered himself together in a corner of
the ambulance, and continued to express forcible
opinions of the mule.

"Dan," I said, "please get away from there!
That mule might kick you."

"Don't be silly, Nell! Somebody's got to
drive."

"But, Dan, if you get kicked, you can't
drive."

"I won't get kicked. I know how to talk to a
mule. Just shut your ears, Nell, if you don't want
to hear me. I've got to convince this mule. She's
just like that engineer and conductor. As soon as
I get through giving her my opinion in language
she can understand, she'll travel all right."

"Not a bit of it! This isn't anything to a
soldier. But a soldier's wife, eh, Nell? Getting to
be rather hard lines, isn't it?"

"Dan," I said, my teeth chattering "don't it
seem that I have had more adventures in one
day than I am entitled to?"

"Rather! By the way, Josh got on that same
freight. How he managed it, the Lord only
knows! Worked himself in with the brakeman, I
suppose. But he got off - to look around, I
reckon just like him! - at some station before
Milford and got left. He'll come straggling into
camp to-morrow. You see there's another
accident you can credit your account with. Josh
could have driven these mules instead of that fool
white man over there who don't know what to do
with a mule. Then I would have been back there
entertaining you, and you would have been
complimenting me by going to sleep." He drove
on singing:

We caught up with another ambulance. In it
were an army friend of Dan's and his wife, and
she proved the straw that broke the back of my
endurance. She played the martyr. She had rugs,
and shawls, and blankets. I cross-examined her
and made her show that she hadn't been left on a
car by herself without a ticket or a cent of
money, and with no knowledge of where she
was going, that the driver of her ambulance
hadn't been kicked in the stomach and tumbled
himself backward into her lap and nearly broken
her bones, and that my case was far worse than
hers. But in spite of it, she complained of
everything, and had Dan and her husband
sympathizing so with her that they had no time to
sympathize with me. I sat, almost frozen, huddled
up in the one shawl that answered for shawl,
blanket, and rug, and tried to keep my teeth from
chattering and myself from hating that whining
Mrs. Gummidge of a woman.

At last our ambulance drew up in front of the
Rev. Mr. McGuire's, where we were to stop
There was a hot supper ready, in parlor and
dining-room cheerful flames

leaped up from hickory logs on bright brass
fire-dogs, and our welcome was as cheery as
the glow of the fire. As our ambulance had
driven into the gate a few minutes in advance
of the other, and as Dan had also engaged
board for me several days before, I had a
right to the first choice of rooms. One of
these was large with a bright fire burning in
the fireplace, and a great downy feather-bed
on the four-poster; the other was small, and
had neither fireplace nor feather-bed. Of
course "Mrs. Gummidge" got the best
room. Dan had to go back to camp. I slept
on my hard bed in my cold room and cried
for Milicent and mother; and the next morning
I broke the ice in my bowl when I went
to take my bath. I was very, very miserable
that morning. I was not out of my twenties,
I had been a spoiled child, I had not seen
Milicent or mother since my marriage, I had
nearly lost my husband, and I had been ill
unto death. Following my husband around
as I did, I yet saw very little of him, and I
endured hardships of every sort. I was in the
land of war, and in spite of all his efforts to
protect me life was full of fears and horrors.

I do not mean that it was all woe. There were
smiles, and music, and laughter, too; my hosts
were kind, Dan came over from camp whenever
he could, and life was too full of excitement ever
to be dull. During the day I managed fairly
well - it was at night that the horrors
overwhelmed me. My room was cheerless, my
bed was hard and cold - I wanted Milicent, I
wanted mother. I felt that the time had come
when I must see them and I couldn't: there was
no way! The longing grew upon me the more I
struggled against it, until there was no risk I
would not have run to see them. I was sitting in
the parlor one night thinking with indescribable
longing of the happy, care-free days in Norfolk,
and seeing dissolving pictures of home in the
hickory fire. Tears were rolling down my cheeks,
for while I was living over those dear old days I
was living in the present, too. Suddenly I heard a
voice in the hall - Dan's and another's!

I sprang up. And there was Dan, and behind
him in the doorway stood a graceful figure in a
long wrap. And a face - Milicent's face - pale
and weary, but indescribably

That was one time I forgot Dan, but he didn't
mind. He stayed with us as long as he could, and
after he left Milicent and I talked and talked.
Milicent - she was a widow now - had come all
the way from Baltimore to see me - she had left
mother and Bobby to come to see me! My little
bed wasn't hard any more, my room wasn't
cheerless any more; I didn't mind having to break
the ice for my bath. Ah, me, what a night that
was and how happy we were until Dan's
command was moved!

Millie and I - Catholics - wish to pay tribute
to the sweet piety of that Protestant home which
sheltered us. Every evening the big Bible was
brought out and prayers were held, the negro
servants coming in to share in the family
devotions.

CHAPTER VIII

BY FLAG OF TRUCE

Milicent tells how she got from Baltimore to
Dixie.

THE War Department of the United States
issued a notice that on such a date a flag-of-
truce boat would go from Washington to
Richmond, and that all persons wishing to go
must obtain passes and come to that city by a
certain date.

I had not heard from my sister, Mrs. Grey,
for some time. We were very anxious about her,
and I determined to seize this opportunity to get
to her.

I was fortunate in making one of a party of
three ladies, one of whom was Mrs.
Montmorency, the widow of an English officer,
and the other Mrs. Dangerfield, of Alexandria,
Virginia. On our arrival at Washington late at
night, we found all the hotels crowded and were
told that it would be impossible to get a room
anywhere. Fortunately

for us, Mrs. Dangerfield was acquainted with
the proprietor of one of the hotels
where we inquired, and here, after much
difficulty, we secured two small rooms As he
left us the old lady said triumphantly:

"Now, see what's in a name! If my name
hadn't been Dangerfield none of us could have
gotten a place to sleep in to-night."

The next morning we started for the flag-of-
truce boat. Immediately upon our arrival our
baggage was weighed and all over two hundred
pounds refused transportation. The confusion
was indescribable. As soon as the steamer
cleared the wharf every stateroom was locked,
and the five hundred passengers on board, with
the exception of the children, were subjected to a
rigid examination - their persons, their clothing,
their trunks were all thoroughly searched. We
were marched down two by two between
guards, and passed into the lower cabin, where
four women removed and searched our clothing;
our shoes, stockings, and even our hair were
subjected to rigid inspection.

Mrs. Dangerfield being the oldest lady on
board was by courtesy exempted. As for

myself, I fell into the hands of a pleasant
woman, who looked ashamed of the office she
had to perform. She passed her hand lightly over
and within my dress, and over my hair; touched
my pockets and satchels, which I willingly
showed her, and dismissed me with a smile and
the kind remark, "Oh, I know you have nothing
contraband," while around me stood ladies
shivering in one garment.

I had tea and sugar, both contraband articles,
in a large satchel upstairs in the care
of the provost marshal. I out-Yankeed the
Yankees this trip. As soon as I had heard that
we were to be searched and have our things
taken from us, I had walked up to the provost
marshal, told him I had tea and coffee - a small
quantity of each - and asked to be allowed to use
them. In the gruffest manner he bade me bring
them immediately to him. My dejected looks must
have inspired him with some pity, for when I
went off and brought back my satchel and
handed it to him, he turned and said in the kindest
manner:

I thanked him and hurried off to impart the
good news to my friend Mrs. Dangerfield. I
found her in a most animated discussion with an
officer who had just pronounced her
camphor-bottle contraband. The old lady was
asserting loudly her inability to stand the trip or
to live without her camphor-bottle. After much
argument and persuasion she was allowed to
retain it.

The scenes on deck at this time were too painful
to dwell upon. Mothers who had periled
everything and spent their last dollar in buying
shoes for their children had to see them rudely
taken away. Materials for clothing, and pins,
needles, buttons, thread, and all the little articles
so needful at home and so difficult to obtain in the
Confederacy at that time were pronounced
contraband. Men went about with their arms filled
with plunder taken from defenseless women who
stood wringing their hands and pleading, crying,
arguing, quarreling.

By this time we were far down the
Potomac. Weak, hungry, and seasick, we were

glad when dinner-time drew near. The official
notice had stated that food would be provided,
which we, of course, had construed into three
meals a day of good steamboat fare. The bell
rang out loudly at last, and we all rushed to the
cabin, where to our utter consternation we saw
nothing whatever to eat, no set table, and nothing
that looked like eating. Coming up the steps
was a dirty boathand with a still dirtier bucket and
a string of tin cups. He deposited these on a table
and then called upon the ladies to help themselves
to atrocious coffee, without milk, sugar, or
spoons. Down he went again, and came up laden
with tin plates piled one on the other, and
containing what he called a sandwich. This
sandwich was a chunk - not a slice - of bread,
spread with dreadful mustard, a piece of coarse
ham and another chunk of bread. Each person
was generously allowed one of the tin plates and
one sandwich. The very thought of swallowing
such food was revolting, and more particularly so
because we were tantalized with odors of
beefsteak and chicken and other appetizing
delicacies prepared for the officers' table.

How thankful I was to the provost for
confiscating my tea and coffee and sugar and
crackers and ginger-cakes! Each of our party
had something to add. Down upon the lower deck
we had seen an immense pile of loaves of bread,
and near them a large stove. We coaxed the
sailor in charge to get us a clean loaf from the
center of the pile and to put our tea on his stove
to draw. In a few moments we disappeared to
enjoy in our stateroom the luxury of a cup of tea!
How others fared I do not know. We were the
only people, I think, who had saved any tea.
Almost every one had brought a few crackers, or
cakes of some kind which they had managed to
keep, and these they must have lived on with the
abominable coffee.

When we reached the boat that morning
only one stateroom was vacant, and this we
contrived to secure. It was crowded comfort for
three persons, but we were thankful. When night
came our less fortunate fellow travelers were
scattered in every direction on the floor, their only
accommodations filthy camp mattresses without
sheets, pillows,

We traveled slowly and cautiously, fearing
that in the night our flag might not be distinctly
seen and we might be fired upon. The provost
and his officers were in most things polite and
kind. The men got up a little play between decks
for the amusement of the ladies; but our party
was too ultra-Southern even to look on.

We remained off Fortress Monroe all night,
only starting at daylight for the James River.
The trip up the James was accomplished in
safety and without incident of special interest, if
we except a very sudden and desperate love
affair between a Southern girl and a Federal
officer and the amusement which it afforded us.

As our boat neared the wharf at City Point,
on all sides were heard cries of:

"Here we are in Dixie!"

As soon as we were landed a rush was made
for the cars, and after everybody was seated the
provost marshal came through bidding us good-
by, shaking hands with many and kissing the
pretty young girls. He

had been very kind, and, as far as lay in his
power, had done so much for the comfort of all
and for the pleasure of the young people that
most of us felt as if we were parting from a
friend. Indeed, some were so enthusiastic that
before we reached City Point they went among
the passengers begging subscriptions to a fund
for purchasing the provost a handsome diamond
ring as a testimonial. Many, however, refused
indignantly, declaring that they did not feel called
upon to reward the provost for confiscating
every article possible, and for giving us for seven
consecutive meals spoiled bacon, mustard, and
undrinkable coffee.

In Petersburg little or no preparation had
been made for us although the hotel proprietors
knew the truce boat was expected that
afternoon at City Point. We were scarcely able
to secure an ordinary supper, and had to sleep,
eight or ten in a room, on mattresses laid on the
floor, and which, though clean and comfortable
enough, were without covering. The next day
we parted to go in different directions.

CHAPTER IX

I MAKE UP MY MIND TO RUN THE
BLOCKADE

LATE one day we saw an ambulance driving
up to the gate through the pouring rain. A few
minutes after, Patsy, the housemaid, came in to
say that the adjutant had sent for his wife and
her sister. We supposed that the two men with
the ambulance were rough and common
soldiers - one of them, in fact, the one who had
given the message to Patsy, was a negro
driver - and sent them around to the kitchen to
warm and dry themselves. Very soon Aunt
Caroline, the cook and a great authority, came in
hurriedly and attacked Mrs. McGuire.

"Law, mistess! Y'all sholy orter ax one er
dem men in de house. He sholy orten ter bin sont
to de kitchen. He ain't got no bizness in de
kitchen. He's quality. You orter ax him to come
to de parlor. He specks you gwine ter ax him to
come to de parlor, case

he done bresh hissef up, and he's puttin' sweet
grease on his har, and he say he kin play on de
orgin."

Such accomplishments as these changed the
whole situation. Aunt Caroline was sent to fetch
him. When she threw open the door and
announced him and he entered, bowing low and
gracefully, we could hardly restrain a laugh, for
we had a good view of the top of his head, and it
was fairly ashine! He was Lieutenant Dimitri of
New Orleans, my husband's courier, who had
been sent as our escort. A most efficient and
agreeable one he proved.

If I had only been a young lady following
my father or brother around, how interesting
these memoirs might be made, for Lieutenant
Dimitri was only one of many charming men I
met. Available heroes pass through, bow, and
make their exits. And I am afraid of boring my
friends with the one hero who remains because
he is my husband; consequently I keep him as
modestly as possible in the background. He had
risen steadily in rank, and I was proud of him, but
I must say that my memory is less vivid as to his deeds of

gallantry than it is to what might have been
reckoned minor matters by an older woman. The
greatest crosses of my life were separation from
my mother and sister, telling my husband good-by,
and beholding him in a hopelessly shabby
uniform. The greatest blessings of my life were
found in the little courtesies and kindnesses of
life and in getting my husband back to me, safe
and sound.

When morning came it was still raining, and
the roads in such a condition that Mr. McGuire,
fearing our ambulance would break down,
opposed our going. But I knew that the men and
team must return to camp according to orders,
so we started off in spite of the weather and Mr.
McGuire's protest.

We had not gone far when our driver was
halted by a vidette who barred the way.

"Is Adjutant Grey's wife in the ambulance?"

"Yessuh."

"Turn back. Smallpox ahead."

The driver turned another road. It was only
a short distance before we were halted again.

"I don't kyeer whicherway we go, dar'll be
smallpox in de road sayin' we can't go datter
way." And he drove recklessly on the way the
mules seemed to prefer. The mules struck it.

A vidette halted us again, but it was to say
that we were traveling in the right direction and
to give minute directions for the rest of our
journey. There was a village and its
neighborhood to be avoided, and we had to make
a wide detour before the driver put us down,
according to orders, at Mr. Wright's.

Dan came in quite soon, looking as shabby
as one of his own orderlies, but glad enough to
see me. For some time here I was in a fool's
paradise in spite of the war and the fact that
mother was far away in Baltimore,

ignorant of what might be happening to us, for
camp was very near, there were no active
hostilities, and Dan came to see me every day.

Then the cavalry received marching orders.
The night after I heard it I determined to tell Dan
of a decision I had come to. Milicent had not
spoken, but I knew the drift of her thoughts and
purposes. We had not heard once from mother
and Bobby since she left them in Baltimore.
Milicent was going to them, and I had made up
my mind to go with her. There was no return to
Baltimore by flag of truce; the only way to get
there was to run the blockade, a most dangerous
and doubtful undertaking at this period of the
war. But Milicent's boy was in Baltimore, and
mother was there. She had come to me; she
would go to them, and I intended to go with her.

My heart was set on seeing mother. To be
left alone now by both Milicent and Dan would
drive me crazy; for Milicent to run the blockade
alone would serve me as ill. Besides, I wanted
some things for myself; some pins and needles,
and nice shoes and pocket

handkerchiefs and a new hat and a new cloak,
and I wanted a new uniform for Dan. Dan had
had no new uniform since his first promotion, a
long time ago. He was an officer of high rank,
and he was still wearing his old private's
uniform. He had traveled through rain and snow
and mud, and had slept on the ground and fought
battles in it. Though I had many times cleaned
that uniform, darned it, patched it, turned it,
scoured it, done everything that was possible to
rejuvenate it, my shabby-looking soldier was a
continual reproach to me. When Dan would
come to see me I used to make him wrap up in a
sheet or blanket while I worked away on his
clothes with needle and thread, soap and water
and smoothing irons. I was ready to run the
blockade for a new uniform for Dan if for
nothing else, but to tell him that I was going to run
the blockade - there was the rub! Evening came
and Dan with it and the telling had to be done
somehow.

"Dan," I began, patting the various patches
on his shabby knee, "I want you to have a new
uniform."

One's about as easy as the other. You'll have to
take it out in wanting, my girl."

"I expect I could buy Confederate cloth in
Baltimore."

"Maybe - if you were there."

"Dan, I think I'll slip across the border and
buy you a Confederate uniform, gold lace and
all, from a Yankee tradesman, and then slip
back here with it, and behold you in all the glory
of it. Wouldn't that be nice, Dan?"

"Rather!"

Dan took in his patches at a glance, perhaps
by way of mental comparison between himself
in this and himself in the imaginary new
uniform. But I saw he did not understand me at
all - I had to make things plain.

"Dan," I said, "I am going to Baltimore."

"What?" he thundered.

"I am going to run the blockade with Millie."

"Have you lost your senses?"

"No, Dan. But I'm going to run the blockade
with Millie - to get you a new uniform."

but I still affirmed that I must go to Baltimore.
Dan reasoned and argued, but that didn't do any
good. Then he swore, but swearing didn't alter
the case. The case was, indeed, beyond Dan, but
he made a long and hard fight, and didn't
surrender for a long while. I cried all night, and
he reasoned all night. When he saw that the case
was hopeless, he started us to Petersburg under
suitable escort. We had to go first to Petersburg
in order to get the money which we wished to
take North to exchange for all the goods and
chattels we might be able to smuggle South.

Dan detailed a driver and an ambulance for
our service and Lieutenant Johnston to act as
escort. The morning we started it looked cloudy.
Dan tried to dissuade us. I said I had always
been a good weather prophet and I didn't think it
would rain. Millie reinforced me.

But when it actually came to telling Dan
good-by, I broke down. His threadbare clothes
plead with me both ways. I hung around his
neck and did so much crying that he got sorry
for me and helped me off.

I was upset in my mind, too. I continued to
cry in a helpless, hopeless fashion, and was feeling
that nothing on earth could make me more
wretched than I already was when it began
raining. Lieutenant Johnston, who had the soul of
Mark Tapley, prophesied a shower and refused to
leave his seat with the driver, but in a little while he
was driven inside with us. It rained harder and
harder - it poured. The ambulance began to leak
and the straw on the floor got wet. Milicent and I
huddled together under the old blanket shawl and
drew over that a ragged piece of oilcloth; but the
rain soaked through. Where Lieutenant Johnston
sat there was a steady dripping, bursting now and
then into a stream. But he was not to be daunted
by discomforts or difficulties. He invented a trough
for carrying off the water by making a dent in his
broad-brimmed hat, pulling the brim into a point,
and sticking it through a rent in the ambulance
cover; and he was so merry over it all, and so
convinced that things might be far worse and
would soon be much better, that we were
beginning to laugh at our own expense, when a
sullen

rushing and roaring reminded us that the worst
of our troubles were still before us. We
looked out of our ambulance upon the swollen
waters of the Pamunkey River.

The thing on which we were to cross it was
moored to the bank by a great chain. It was a
lighter crowded with men and horses. There
were soldiers at the ends and sides holding long
sticks which they used as poles to direct and
govern the craft. Our ambulance and mules
were driven on along with other teams, and we
walked into the midst of rearing and plunging
horses, that threatened every minute to back off
the lighter into the river and drag us with them,
while our craft was making its slow way to the
opposite bank.

I stood between two horses that reared and
plunged the whole time. The men who held
them had hard work to control them and, I must
add, that they swore roundly, and confess that
this was the one occasion of my life when I did
not undervalue that accomplishment or wish to
put any restraint upon its free exercise. The
truth is I was so scared that I was ready to help
along with either

As one of the men was trying his best to
keep the horse he was holding from plunging and
kicking itself into the river, or plunging and
kicking itself on me, he caught my eye in the
middle of an oath, and interrupted himself to
begin an apology. The horse took advantage of
this to make more vigorous demonstrations.

"Oh! oh!" I cried in terror, "finish - finish
what you were saying to the horse! He's going
to jump on me, and I'll have to say it myself if
you don't!"

I didn't realize what I was saying until I
heard a chuckle from the men within hearing
distance. They knew that I was beside myself
with terror, and did their best to smother their
laughter. But I was past caring for public
opinion. I was in an agony of terror. There was
no other place for me to stand-horses, kicking,
plunging, rearing horses were crowded everywhere.
A lighter is the rudest excuse for a boat. Ours was
made of planks crossed and nailed together, and between their
wide spaces, just under my feet, I

saw the swollen waters, upon which we seemed
to be tossed, and careened, and whipped about
without the control or guidance of those on
board. Never before or since, never during any
period of the war, was I in such a state of
helpless fright as on that day when I crossed the
mad Pamunkey on a lighter with swearing men
and kicking horses around me and the water
bubbling up against my feet.

Appearances to the contrary, our soldiers
with the poles were directing our craft and
turning the will of the tide to our profit, and at
last we were on the shore. Safe in our wet
ambulance, we started on our way again. I was
never so cold, so wet, so everything wretched in
my life, and what should Lieutenant Johnston do
but propose to go out of our way to see St.
Peter's Church.

"An old colonial relic," he said. "You ladies
ought not to miss it now that you are so near."

"I don't want to see any relics," I answered
promptly. "The only thing I want to see is a fire
and something to eat."

show us that old church. I was too wretched and
miserable to look at it with proper interest. I
don't remember how it looked - I only know that
I had to go there and see it whether I would or
no. George Washington had done something or
other there - got married, I believe. I think the
church had some very fine ivy on it, but I am not
sure. I thought it was old and small, and that it
might do very well in summer, but that under
present circumstances Washington himself would
forgive me for being wholly in the thought of
getting to a fire. Hunger and cold, cramped
positions and rain dripping in on me had blunted
everything in me except longings for creature
comforts. The lieutenant drove all around the
church religiously before starting on our way
again.

"I don't believe you saw it at all," he said to
me with real concern.

"Oh, yes, I did!" I answered promptly,
terrified lest we should be turned back to look at
it again, "I saw it thoroughly."

Of course, Milicent had looked the old
church over and talked intelligently about it, but
for the life of me, I couldn't remember

The rain had dwindled into a drizzle, night
was coming on, and I began to grow more and
more anxious to find a stopping-place.

"I do hope we shall get into a place where
they keep good fires," I said. "If we should get
into a place where they burn green pine, I should
lie down and die. Wet, green pine," I continued
dolorously, "that smokes and never burns, and
raw, clammy biscuit is about what we'll get
tonight."

The lieutenant looked as if he was very
sorry for me.

"I wish," he said unhappily, "I wish I knew
how to tell a place where they burn green pine."
Suddenly he brightened.

"I have it!" he exclaimed. "We won't stop at
any house where there isn't a big wood-pile. We
don't stop anywhere until we find a big white
house, a big wood-pile and a nigger chopping
wood."

We passed several dwellings, but the
lieutenant wouldn't stop. "I don't see any

At last we came upon what we wanted - a
large white house, a wood-pile nearly as high as
the house and a negro man chopping wood for
dear life.

Through a big front yard full of shrubbery, a
wide graveled walk and circular drive-way led
up to the house, and in a few minutes our
ambulance was in front of the veranda. The
lieutenant sprang out and went up the steps.

A gray-headed negro butler answered his
knock.

"Wanter see master, sah? Yes, sah. Won't
you step right in, sah?"

"I haven't time to stop a minute unless I can
get lodgings for the night. I have ladies in the
ambulance. Ask your master if he will be good
enough to see me at the door for a minute."

Sambo bowed, made haste backward, and
almost immediately an old gentleman appeared.

"Certainly, sir, certainly," he said, interrupting
the lieutenant in the middle of his

And he helped to bring us in himself.
Servants of all kinds appeared as if by magic
from all quarters, and took charge of our trunks,
satchels, ambulance, and driver.

The Virginia gentleman of those days was
hospitable, as men are truthful, for his own sake
first. His hospitality was spontaneous,
unconscious, and free as heaven itself with its
favors. All it asked in return was that you should
come when you pleased, go when you pleased,
stay as long as you pleased, and enjoy yourself
to the top of your bent.

The house was a house of spindle-legged
chairs, spindle-legged piano, brass fire-dogs, fine
dark woodwork, candelabra of brass and
crystal, and tall wax candles. Through the gloom
the eyes of old portraits looked down upon us.
In the wide fireplace of our bedroom crackled a
mighty fire of oak and hickory; over the fire
hung a bright brass kettle singing merrily; there
were the ever-present fire-dogs and fender of
burnished brass, and on the mantle two wax
lights burning

in silver candlesticks. Two smiling negro
maids stood ready to minister to us.

In opposite corners of the room stood two
large, canopied, mahogany bedsteads, with great,
downy feather-beds and counterpanes, sheets
and pillows as white as snow and smelling of
lavender. The undiminished length of the table at
which we sat down that night bore testimony not
only to the good cheer it had given, but to that
which it was ready to give. It was of dark rich
mahogany, polished to the fineness of a mirror,
that reflected the tall silver candlesticks holding
wax candles. The silver service and beautiful old
china rested on white mats that were not visible
except where encircling fringes of gleaming
damask suggested nests of snores. On a quaint
buffet stood cut-glass decanters holding topaz
and ruby wines and brandy arid whisky.

The great mahogany sideboard - a small
house in itself - nearly reached the ceiling The
upper half was a cabinet with glass doors
shaped like the doors of a Gothic cathedral. The
lower half had drawers with white knobs, and
bellied doors of the most beautiful dark

wood, reflecting, like the table, the glow of the
wax lights. The glass cabinet glittered with silver
and crystal, and here and there was clouded with
the rich maroon and saffron of rare old china.
Our hostess was a stately and beautiful old lady
in black silk (much torn), with fichu and cuffs of
real old lace. Our host wore fine black
broadcloth, threadbare and of ancient cut.

Such a soft, shining picture as that supper-
room was! I wish I could paint it as I saw it that
night! And what a delicious supper! There was
tea, sure enough; tea of delicious aroma; and
sure enough sugar, too, in fine white lumps
which had to be picked up with silver tongs.
There were little tea-cakes and fairy-like puffs
and wafers, and delicious hot rolls! creamy and
velvety, and light as a breath.

In crystal dishes gleamed the rich, clear red
and amber of preserved fruits, and crystal-clear
sweetmeats were set before us in crystal
dishes. These were cut in designs of leaf and
flower, fish and bird, squirrels, rabbits, and
acorns - really too elaborately cut and too
beautifully transparent to be eaten. And

then there was Virginia fried chicken - of such
a delicate rich brown! and such juicy sweetness!
At last we each lay covered up in a great downy
bed, and went to sleep, and slept as if we never
expected to wake up.

CHAPTER XI

THE OLD ORDER

WE found fresh straw and hot bricks in the
bottom of our ambulance when we were ready
to leave the next morning, an excellent luncheon
and two bottles of wine. Soon after we started
the wind changed, the clouds disappeared, and
the sun came out. By the time we reached the
Chickahominy there was sunshine in
plenty - and wind, too.

Not a boat was in sight, and no figure on either
bank of man or beast. I thought the lieutenant
and the driver would split their lungs hallooing,
but there was no response. Nobody answered
and nobody came. We waited on the bank an
hour without seeing anybody. Then an Indian
came by in a skiff and we hailed him. He
paddled to the shore, and we asked him if he
knew where we could get a boat and some one
to put us across.

"Never mind that, so you get paid for your
skiff. I am an old sailor."

Powhatan didn't think the lieutenant could
manage that skiff; however, he got his price and
gave in.

When he saw the three of us squeezing
ourselves into the skiff he remonstrated again.

"Squaws spill out. Squaws git sick," he
insisted. He told the lieutenant that we would be
frightened out of our lives before we got across
the river. He didn't know that Millie and I had
been brought up on the coast and were as used
to water as ducks.

Whoever has rowed an Indian skiff may
have some idea of what a cockle-shell it was
that took us across the Chickahominy. I sat in
one end, Milicent in the other, and Lieutenant
Johnston in the middle, paddle in hand, while our
little craft switched and

wriggled and rocked itself about in a manner that
was as extraordinary as it was dangerous, and
that was nearer perpetual motion than anything
I ever saw.

At last the lieutenant stood up and straddled
the boat to balance her. How he ever balanced
himself I can't say, but he stood with one foot on
each of her sides and managed her somehow.
No one but an old sailor could have done it. I
expected every minute to see him fall over into
the water.

The sun was shining down, silvering the
waters of the Chickahominy. The strong winds
churned the waves and blew our hats and veils
almost off our heads, and almost blew our breath
away - when the rocking skiff left us any. And
out on the wide, turbulent, bright river we tossed
and tumbled, and laughed and got wet and came
near drowning. I never had more fun in any
sail. But at last we were safely across, and
waiting by the York River Railroad for our train.
The half-breed gave us our trunks, and took
back his skiff and our money. In a few hours we
were in Richmond, where the lieutenant

saw us to our hotel, and left. I sent a letter by
him to Dan, begging Dan's pardon for having my
own way.

The next day found us in Petersburg. Our
business here was to provide ourselves with
money with which to buy Yankee goods
- particularly a Confederate uniform - in
Yankeeland. I wanted as much gold as our
broker could let me have, but he advised me
against taking more than enough to make the trip
with, and a small margin for contingencies.

"It will be in your way and increase your
danger," he said. "Confederate notes will get
you to the Potomac. From there you need a little
gold to take you to Baltimore. After you are
there I will contrive any sum you want to your
trustees in Norfolk. They, being inside the
Yankee lines, can send it to Baltimore."

Our next objective point was Mrs. Rixey's in
Culpeper. Blockade-runners were continually
setting out from there, and we thought we would
have no difficulty in attaching ourselves to a
party. After a rest in Petersburg of a day
and a half, we started for

Culpeper, reaching Mrs. Rixey's at nightfall. We
told her husband that we wanted to join a party
of blockade-runners.

"Mrs. Otis and her two daughters start
north to-morrow; perhaps you can go with
them," he said, and went out to see about it.

Unfortunately - or fortunately - the Otis
party was complete - there was no vacant seat
in their wagon.

"I will be on the lookout for you," Mr. Rixey
said. "Somebody else will be along soon."

Before breakfast he knocked at our door.

"There are two gentlemen downstairs who
are going north," he said, when Millie stuck her
head out. "They give their names as Captain
Locke and Mr. Holliway, and they seem to be
gentlemen. That is all I know about them. You
might see them and talk the matter over."

We finished dressing hurriedly and went
down to the parlor, where we met Captain
Locke and Mr. Holliway, and after a brief talk
decided to go with them.

The best vehicle we could get was a wagon
without springs, and instead of a

body four planks laid across the axles, one plank
set up on each side, and no ends at all.

Over the rude floor we had a quantity of
straw piled, and two chairs were set up for
Milicent and me. The gentlemen seated
themselves on our baggage, which consisted of
two small trunks into which we had crowded a
few articles for each of them. The wagoner, a
rough mountaineer, sat on a plank which had
been laid across the two uprights at the sides.

It was a bitterly cold day. Milicent and I
wore thick cloaks, and the wagoner supplied a
blanket which we wrapped about our feet. In
addition, the gentlemen contributed a large
blanket shawl which they insisted upon folding
about our shoulders, declaring that their
overcoats protected them sufficiently. Now and
then they got out of the wagon and walked and
stamped to keep their legs from getting stiff with
cold, and at last Milicent and I were reduced to
the same device for keeping up our circulation.
We got so stiff we couldn't move, and the
gentlemen had to lift us out of the wagon, pull us
about and drag us into a walk and a run.

It was dark when we reached the house at
which it had been suggested we should stop.
Lights were in every window and we could see
much moving about. Mr. Holliway went in to ask
for lodgings.

He returned quickly and jumped into the
wagon, saying to the wagoner:

"Drive on."

Milicent and I were almost freezing.

"What's the matter?" we asked in keen
disappointment.

Just then the wagon made a turn, and we
saw distinctly into the house through an
uncurtained window. There was a long white
object in the middle of the floor and over it stood
a weeping woman.

"Why," I exclaimed, "somebody's dead
there."

"Yes, I didn't want to tell you," he said. "It's a
dead soldier. I was afraid it might make you feel
badly. Ladies are sometimes superstitious, and I
feared you might take it as a bad omen for our
journey."

But we found out afterward that it was he who
had taken it for a bad omen. He was going
north to see his family, and he was so

anxious about them that he talked of little else.
Captain Locke's mission was not so clear. He
called it business - we little knew what
dangerous business it was! - and we troubled
our heads no further about it.

It was very late when we at last came upon
a tumble-down farmhouse, where we were
taken in for the night. The family who lived there
did their best for us, but they were far from
being comfortable themselves. By this time,
however, any quarters and any fare were
acceptable. We slept in the room with a goodly
company, all fortunately of our own sex, and the
gentlemen, as we heard afterward, in even more
crowded quarters.

Our poverty-stricken hosts did not wish to
charge us, but before we left the next morning
we insisted upon paying them.

That morning a little Jew boy was added to
our party. Just how, or when, or where we picked him up,
I can not recall, and I should probably never have thought
of him again if he had not impressed himself upon me
most unpleasantly afterward at Berlin.

Mr. Bolling was old and gray-haired, or would
have been in the field. His home was one of the
most celebrated country-seats
in Fauquier, and he himself full of honors
and one of the best-known men in the State.

The night we spent at this old Virginia
homestead was repetition of a night previously
described, with variations. Here were the same
old-fashioned mahogany furniture with claw feet
and spindle legs, and wax lights in brass and
silver candelabra, and rare old china, and some
heirlooms whose history we were interested in.
Several of these had come with the first Bollings
from England. There was a sword which had
come down from the War of the Roses, and on
the wall, in a place of special honor, hung
the sword of a Bolling who had distinguished
himself in the Revolution. Mr. Bolling took it
down and laid it in Milicent's outstretched hands
with a smile.

"I am a believer in State's rights, and I am a
Secessionist, I suppose," said the old man with a
sigh, as he hung the sword back in its place.
"But - I hate to fight the old flag. I hate that."

Above the sword was the portrait of the
Bolling who had worn the sword, a soldierly
looking fellow in the uniform of a Revolutionary
colonel.

"He saved the old flag once at the cost of his
life," the aged man said, sighing again. "He is
buried out yonder in the graveyard, wrapped in
the folds of the very flag he snatched from the
hands of the British. If we were to open his
grave to-night, we would find his bones and
ashes wrapped in that flag he died to save. Yes,
I am sorry to fight the old flag."

"Then," I said innocently and without
thinking, "it is well that you are exempted from
service in the field."

His eyes flashed.

"Ah, no, my dear! Since fighting there is, I
wish I could be in it. If I were young enough and
strong enough I'd take that sword down and
follow Robert Lee. Virginia is invaded."

CHAPTER XII

A DANGEROUS
MASQUERADE

THE night of our third day found us at the
wagoner's cottage on the top of the Blue Ridge
Mountains. As we climbed our slow and painful
way up to the ruddy little light that beckoned us
from its wild and eerie perch, moonlight and
starlight fell upon snow-capped cliffs and into
deep valleys, touching them into solemn, mystical
beauty. It was as if we had lost ourselves in the
clear, white stillness of the enchanted Snow
Kingdom that had enthralled and terrified us in
the happy days of fairy tales. But there was
nothing magical about the cottage when we
finally got there, or the welcome, or the supper.
Instead of fairies and cowslip dew and bread of
lily pollen, we had a delightfully wholesome,
plump Virginia housewife, a Virginia welcome,
and, above all, a Virginia supper.

The cottage was plainly furnished, but it was
neat as a pin. The mountaineer's wife and mother
served us, the one waiting on us, the other
cooking. We sat at table in the kitchen, and such
a feast as we had! There was nice apple-butter
on the table, and delicious milk and cream, fresh
eggs and hot buckwheat cakes, and genuine
maple sirup, of course. I have never tasted such
buckwheats anywhere. And how fast the old
lady fried them, and the wife handed them to us,
piping hot! and how fast we ate! and how many!

The furniture in our bedroom, as everywhere
else, was exceedingly plain, but so deliciously
clean. And such a bed! such a downy, fragrant
bed! The sheets were snowy, the coverlet was
spotless. As I went to sleep I had an idea that
the feathers in that bed must have come from the
breasts of mountain birds that had never touched
the earth. In the morning the mountaineer took
us to a point near his house, where we could
stand and look into - I have forgotten how many
States, and out upon snowy peaks, and mountain
streams, and lovely shadowed vales.

We lost our Confederate captain when we
started down the mountain that day; Mr.
Holliway had all along been in civilian's dress,
and now Captain Locke changed his uniform for
citizen's clothes, leaving the uniform at the
cottage, to be called for on his return.

The fourth night we reached Berryville.

Here it was necessary to hold a council with
closed doors, for the presence of the little Jew
boy had for several days prevented us from
talking freely.

He seemed to have eyes and ears all over
him, and we felt vaguely that he would use both
to our disadvantage. So we shut him out of the
little room at the inn in Berryville where we held
our secret council. The morrow would find us
inside the Federal lines - it was necessary to
prepare our story. We agreed that Captain
Locke was to be our brother, because he had
fair hair and blue eyes like ourselves. Mr.
Holliway was of too entirely different a type to
be claimed for a nearer relationship than that of
cousin. We were young ladies of Baltimore who
had been visiting at Mr. Robert Bolling's in Fauquier,
and our brother and cousin had come south

to take us home, not being willing that we should
undertake such a journey alone. Captain Locke
gave Milicent some papers to be concealed in
the lining of her muff. I, too, had some papers to
hide for him. Fortunately we did not know until
afterward that Captain Locke was a Confederate
spy, and that the papers we carried were
official documents of importance to the
Confederacy, and that if discovered the captain
would be strung up in short order and every one
of us sent to prison.

If we had known what he was and the
nature of the papers, I think our patriotism would
have risen to the occasion, but we should have
been more nervous and more likely to betray
ourselves. So I think he was wise to take the
liberty of counting on our patriotism, and also to
keep us in the dark as a safeguard for both
ourselves and the papers.

The next forenoon we reached the Potomac
River, and found ourselves in Federal lines. Our
wagoner bade us good-by and left us there on
the bank. In the river below lay the lighter on
which we were to cross the

Potomac. It was crowded with Federal soldiers.
There was no way to reach it except to slide
down the bank, and the bank was steep. To slide
down, it was neither a graceful nor a dignified
thing to do. I drew back.. The captain took me by
the hand to pull me over. I still drew back. I did
not want to slide down that bank.

"Come on, sister!" he exclaimed with
brotherly crossness.

I grinned broadly, but the captain, his back to
the lighter, gave me such a serious look that I
sobered in an instant.

The Federal soldiers on the lighter could see
and hear. One blunder now and we were lost. I
yielded to the inevitable and slid down the bank
with the captain; Mr. Holliway followed with
Milicent. Another minute, and we stood on the
lighter in the midst of Yankee soldiers and
Yankee horses. A horse's nose was over my
shoulder the whole way. Soldiers were crowded
up against me there was ample occasion for
swears, but I

don't think I heard an oath the entire distance,
and they were courtesy itself to Milicent and
me.

Landing at Berlin, we walked into the office
of the provost marshal. The provost was out,
and the deputy who was at his desk looked at us
with cool, inquisitive eyes. He put the usual
questions and received ready-made answers.

"Who are you?" he asked Captain Locke in
a very suspicious tone.

"Charles D. Moore, of Baltimore."

"Occupation?"

"I am studying law."

"Humph!" with a glance that made me
keenly alive to the lameness of that story told
by the martial-looking captain.

"My sisters," said Captain Locke firmly, "and
I am here to protect them on their way
back home."

"Where have they been?"

"They are from Mr. Robert Bolling's in
Fauquier County, Virginia. They have been
visiting at his house. We wished them to return
to Baltimore, and I came south for them. My
cousin, Mr. May, joined us."

"And you - what are you doing down
here?" with a touch of irony to Holliway

"Got caught this side by the war, and and
trying to get back home."

"Ah, yes, of course. I can't pass you. Take
seats, please. The marshal will be in directly."

Our evidence was too smooth.

It was plain the deputy didn't believe in us,
and we felt uneasy and miserable to the soles
of our boots - except Captain Locke, who
looked thoroughly at his ease.

marshal came in. It seemed a great deal more,
yet I can't say that I longed to see him.

"What's all this?" he asked his deputy
as he took in our party, braced up against the
wall.

"A party who crossed from Virginia this
morning. They have been visiting in
Fauquier - they say - and want to get back to
Baltimore. A lame tale, I call it. I would send
them straight back if I had my way with them."

The provost's eyes had rested first on me, as
I happened to be more conspicuously placed
than the others. I have been accredited with a
most ingenuous countenance. I returned his
gaze with a regard utterly "childlike and bland,"
looking up into his face with eyes as frank and
trusting as a baby's. Past me his gaze went to
Milicent - I have said before that Milicent had
the face of a Madonna; then the manly and
straightforward eyes of Locke held him; and last
Mr. Holliway's reserved and gentlemanly
countenance met his scrutiny with a quiet dignity
that disarmed suspicion. He began by interviewing

"I have been here an hour, sir, and I am, very
tired. I would be so much obliged if you would
send us on home I am almost sick with the
journey I have taken, and I should so like to get
home to-night."

"That is impossible," he said; "but," he
continued kindly, "I do not think you will be
detained later than to-morrow morning."

He conversed in a low tone with his deputy,
and then I heard him say: "Let them spend the
night at the old German's on the hill, and
tomorrow we will see about it."

Then turning to us, he said that an orderly
would conduct us to a place where we would
be lodged for the night. When an officer asked
about our baggage, I extended my keys quickly,
saying:

"We have two small trunks."

He took the keys with an apology. As I was
passing out of the door I turned back and held
out my satchel.

The old Dutchman was out, but his wife
received us and made us comfortable. While we
were at supper he came in. "I speeks mit you
after supper," he said solemnly, and sat in
silence until we had finished.

Then he took us into a room, closed and
locked the door, came close to us, and
whispered:

"I knows dat you haf run te plockate. You
bees in ver' mooch tancher. Town te stdreet I
hears you vas at mine house, unt I hears ver'
mooch talk, unt I lis'en. I vill help you if you vill
let me."

He now addressed himself particularly to
Captain Locke and Mr. Holliway:

"You, shentlemen, mus' leave mine house,
shoost as soon as you can, or you vill be daken
prisoners. I vill help you to get avay."

"We can't do it," said Locke promptly. "I
can not leave my sisters alone and unprotected."

Milicent and I were trembling with fear.

"Brother," said Milicent, "you and Cousin
William must leave us and save yourselves."

"Please go," I begged. I could not keep my
eyes off the door. I feared every moment to
hear the rap of the sergeant come to arrest our
friends. But the captain and Mr. Holliway
reiterated their determination not to leave us in
our present situation. If I had not been scared
almost to death I could have laughed at the
perfect brotherliness of Locke's protestations.

"Tere is tancher, shentlemen. I hears te talk
town te street," urged the Dutchman with every
appearance of earnestness and good-will.

ladies. Nopody vill hu't tem, unt I vill see dat
tey gets off all right. Tere is no tancher for
tem."

"Thank you, my friend," said the captain
simply and heartily. "But we can not accept
your kind offer. We must take my sisters home
ourselves."

"I ver' sorry," said the Dutchman sadly.

As soon as the door closed behind him, we
began to plead.

"Captain," said Milicent, "you and Mr.
Holliway must go. We will not consent to
anything else."

"We should be regular deserters to do that,"
said Locke contemptuously. "I think the old
fellow is exaggerating. Or maybe he is pumping
us. Holliway and I will walk down the street and
see."

We thought this was madness, and we were
miserable from the moment they left until they
were safely back. Captain Locke was, as
always, at his ease, but Mr. Holliway was very
pale. He knew, as Milicent and I did not, the risk
we were all running, and he was more
concerned perhaps for Locke's safety than for
his own. For him arrest

"The Dutchman is right," he said in answer
to our questions. "We stopped outside several
places and heard them talking about us and our
arrest. We are practically prisoners."

He tried to speak cheerfully and as if it
would be a sure and easy matter to find some
way out of our predicament; but the truth was
that he had been struggling all along against
great depression of spirits; his health was bad,
the incident of the first night of our journey had
impressed him, and he had evidently felt himself
under a cloud ever since our experience at the
provost's.

"That talk doesn't amount to much," said
Captain Locke carelessly.

The room in which we were sitting was that
which had been taken for Milicent's and my
bedroom. Captain Locke got up, walked to the
door and locked it.

"You have needles and thread, I think,
ladies?" Milicent and I immediately produced them.

"Rip the papers out of your muff, Mrs.
Norman, and you, little madam, let me have
those I gave you."

The two I had were hidden in my sleeve.
While Milicent and I were getting the papers out,
I heard Mr. Holliway say:

"Burn those papers, Locke. You can never
get them to Baltimore, and you know in what
fearful peril they keep us."

"I might as well turn back if I burn them,"
said the captain. "I take those papers to
Baltimore, or I die trying - and I won't die."

"Excuse the trouble I give you, ladies," he
said, leaning back in his chair and putting his
feet on another. "Will you open the hems of my
trousers and sew those papers inside? It is a
great favor."

We ripped each hem, folded the papers
inside as flat as possible, and sewed the hems
up again. I had not made over Dan's old uniform
for nothing, and Milicent was always a skilful
needlewoman - our hems looked quite natural
and not at all "stuffed." But we

were so nervous that we worked very slowly,
for we felt that a wrong stitch might cost
Captain Locke his life.

He had worn his trousers turned up around
the bottom to keep them out of the mud. When
we had finished he carefully turned them back
again, Mr. Holliway looking on gloomily.

"Now, ladies," said the captain cheerfully, "we
will all retire and get a good night's rest. You
have had a hard day and I am sure you must be
tired."

"Aren't you going away?" we asked
anxiously. "What did you take the papers for?"

He smiled.

"Little madam," he said, "you had best go to
bed and get a good night's rest. That is what I
am going to do. Mrs. Norman, make this poor
child go to bed. And you will promise me to try
to rest too, won't you?"

convinced that it was for our safety as well
as their own. Mr. Holliway was no less
concerned about us than Captain Locke was, but
he took a darker view of the situation. He drew
Locke aside and they talked together in low
tones. I caught the word "reckless" and "those
papers," and "a disadvantage to them," "safer
without us." When they turned back to us
Captain Locke said:

"We leave the question in your hands,
ladies. Perhaps we - and more particularly I
- endanger you by remaining. But I hate to
leave you alone this way, and I am not afraid of
anything that can happen to me. If the worst
came to the worst, and we were arrested, I have
some influence in the North which might still be
of benefit to us all."

"Use it for yourself and Mr. Holliway," we
said, "and go."

"Think well, ladies. You want us to go now,
but when we are gone and you are here alone,
won't you feel desolate and deserted?"

"I don't think I ever heard such a polite
speech in my life," said Captain Locke, laughing.
"Holliway, I think we had better leave
immediately."

He stood cool and smiling, but Mr. Holliway,
whose health was not robust, and upon whom
the hardships of the journey and the excitement
had told, was ghastly. Not that he lacked
courage. He would have stayed and died for us,
as far as that was concerned; but his physical
endurance was not great, and from the first he
had been oppressed with a presentiment of evil.

Milicent had drawn Captain Locke aside,
and was urging him to go, as I knew, and, as I
think, to destroy the papers which Holliway felt
imperiled him. He gave her a smiling negative.

"You must go yourself, and please help us
make the captain go," I was saying to Mr.
Holliway.

"You will have to do that," he replied.
"I have said what I could. It is madness for us
to stay, as I am thoroughly convinced now. You
would be safer without us. Locke doesn't think
so, but I know it. His

pleasure and privilege to know you, ladies. With
all its shadows, this journey will always be one
of my sweetest memories."

We might never see them again. We
knew it as we looked into Locke's bonnie blue
eyes and Holliway's dark sad ones. They had
been our brave and gentle knights, shielding us
and enduring all the hardships cheerfully. One of
them was weaker, we knew, because he had
given his blanket to keep us warm. We looked
bravely back into the two brave faces that
looked into ours - one sign of faltering and they
would not leave us.

"I will say a 'Hail Mary' for each of you
every night," I said.

"I, too," said Milicent softly.

"Thank you," there was a quiver in each
voice now. "We will try to deserve your
prayers, dear ladies."

Then they bowed themselves out with
smiling faces. One of them we never saw
again.

town te river to-tay. Dere vas dree laties unt
van shentleman. Tey dry to cross at de Point of
Vrocks [Point of Rocks] unt fey vas took up unt
sent pack."

"What were their names?" we asked
eagerly.

We remembered that the Otis party
consisted of three ladies and one gentleman. We
had kept in sight of their ambulance for some
time. But at the parting of our ways, when they
had taken one road and we another, our driver
had said: "They are going to try to get across at
the Point of Rocks, and they'll sure be turned
back or took up, one."

they might reach Baltimore. He told us that they
had not gone away immediately after leaving us,
although he had urged them to do so. They had
said they wouldn't go away until they saw how
we took being left alone. They had gone around
to the window of the room in which we were
sitting, and had spied upon us. When they saw
us gossiping with the old woman, they had gone
off satisfied that we would not break down after
their departure.

"Tey vas not so vraid vor her," he said,
indicating Milicent. "It vas you, te leetle matam,
as he call you, dat he vas vraid vor. He vraid
you vould cry pecause you vas so leetle, unt
pecause you vas so ver' younk. I ask him vat he
do if you cry, unt I dry to make him come avay,
unt he say: 'If she cry I von't go. I vill go in tat
room unt I vill cake her up in mine arms unt I vill
not stop until I put her safe in Captain Grey's
arms! Dot is vot I vill do.' He titn't leaf you off,"
to Milicent, "put he dort you pe mo' prave."

If he had been at the window then he would
have seen tears in our eyes. But I bore a
grudge.

"Milicent," I said, as soon as we were alone,
"I don't see why people should make of me just
the exception that they always do. I may be a
little younger, but I am married, and I have got
just as much sense about some things and I'm
just as brave as you are. I'm a soldier's wife, the
wife of a Confederate officer. I wonder how I
have behaved that everybody expects me to be a
coward."

And Milicent comforted me.

The next morning an orderly rapped at the
door of the German's house and asked for us.

The German answered.

"Tell the ladies," with an emphasis on the
word, "the provost says they can go on, The
train leaves in fifteen minutes. They will find
their bagagge at the station. Here are their
keys."

"You see it is vell tat te shentlemen tit not
vait vor bermission," said the German as we
hurried into our wraps.

We heard afterward that following our
departure a sergeant-at-arms called for the
"shentlemen." Our train was late coming in. As
we stood on the platform waiting we

saw that wretched little Jew boy fooling
around and watching us. We pretended not
to see him. Suddenly I felt a tremor in Milicent's
arm which was linked in mine.

"Do you see who is on the platform talking
with the little Jew boy? No, don't turn your
head - don't look suddenly - don't look at all. It
is the provost's deputy who didn't believe in us
yesterday."

Oh, if the train would only come, and we
were on it and gone! As it rolled up beside the
platform we had to restrain ourselves from
getting on it too eagerly. But we were at last in
our seats; the whistle blew, and the train moved
out of the station.

The station was behind us, out of sight, and
we were leaning back enjoying ourselves, when
Milicent glanced behind her. I was looking out
of the window when I felt her hand on my arm.

"Don't look suddenly. But when you can,
glance behind us."

Three seats behind us sat the provosts
deputy. He was reading a paper, or, rather,
watching us over a paper which he held up
before him. He kept us under close observation

the whole way. We had no opportunity to
consult about the difficulties of the situation, but
we felt that we were to elude our shadow in
Baltimore or not at all. Carriages stood thick
around the depot. Drivers were cracking their
whips and importuning the public for patronage.
We stepped off the platform into the midst of
them, got to haggling about prices, and found
ourselves mixed up in a lot of carriages, the
yelling and screaming drivers having closed up
behind us around the platform to which they had
turned their attention. There we saw the deputy's
hat revolving rapidly, as if he were turning
himself about to catch sight of us. Chance stood
our friend. We happened to stand between two
carriages, the doors of which hung open. A party
of two ladies stepped into one. Instantly we took
the other.

"Drive fast to No. - Charles Street,"
Milicent said to the driver. Several carriages
rolled out of the depot with our own, and before
we reached Mrs. Harris's we felt that we had
escaped the deputy. Once with mother and
Bobby we forgot him.

CHAPTER XV

I FALL INTO THE HANDS OF THE ENEMY

MRS. HARRIS kept a select and fashionable
boarding-house. There were many regular
boarders and a stream of people coming and
going all the time. She was a Southern
sympathizer, and her house was a hotbed of
sedition and intrigue for both sides. Among her
guests were three Yankee officers, whom I
made up my mind - or, rather, my mind needed
no making up - to dislike. Uniform and all, I
objected to them. The day after we came Mrs.
Harris was chatting with us in mother's room.

"I must introduce you to those Federal
officers who are in the house," she remarked.

"I beg you will not!" I replied indignantly. "I
will have nothing to do with them."

"Then you will make a grave mistake, my
child. That course would betray you at

once. You've put your head into the lion's mouth,
and prudence is the better policy until you get it
out again. If you meet these officers and are
civil to them they may be of assistance to you
when you want to go back."

Accordingly, when our household met as
usual in the parlors that evening, Captain
Hosmer, Assistant Adjutant-General William D.
Whipple, of Schenck's command, and Major
Brooks - also, I think, of Schenck's
command - were presented to me.

Major Brooks had such a keen, satirical way
of looking at me that I immediately took a
violent prejudice against him, though I tried hard
to conceal it. Schenck's adjutant I did not like
much better. Captain Hosmer was objectionable
on general principles as a Yankee, but he was
really a handsome fellow and a most charming
gentleman, and though I had hard work
overcoming my prejudices sufficiently to be
quite civil at first, I ended by becoming warmly
attached to him. My impulse was to avoid these
gentlemen and to show my colors in a passive
way. I say in a passive way, because anything
approaching

discourtesy Dan would have condemned. On
duty, he would have shot a Yankee down
quickly enough; off duty, he would never have
failed in politeness to a gentleman in any
uniform. As I could not well appear here as a
Confederate officer's wife, I was introduced to
these gentlemen as Miss Duncan The day after
our arrival we mailed Captain Locke's picture,
which he had given us for the purpose, to his
sister in Harrisburg, and called to see Mr.
Holliway's mother and sisters. They were
charming women, and entertained us in true
Baltimore fashion.

Indeed, I soon found myself in a whirl of
gaiety. Mrs. Harris's house was a merry one.
Of course, being in Baltimore, its politics were
mixed, as we have said, but as far as social
position and culture were concerned, the guests
were above reproach. The parlors in the
evening reminded one of those of a fashionable
pleasure resort.

Next door was another boarding-house.
Mother's windows overlooked the entrance, and
we amused ourselves - according to boarding -
house custom and privilege by watching our
own and our neighbors' callers

and guests, and by nicknaming them. There was
one of the next-door boarders who entertained
us greatly. We dubbed him "the Professor." He
had a funny way of wearing his green goggles
as if they were about to fall off his nose. He had
long, snaky curls which looked very greasy and
glossy, and he walked with a slight stoop, using a
goldheaded cane; and he always carried a book
under his arm.

In our own house were two ladies who
afforded us much amusement. They were
sisters, as Captain Hosmer took occasion to
inform me early in our acquaintance, but they
were politically so opposed to each other that
they did not speak.

Mrs. Bonds was a black Republican, Mrs.
Lineman a red-hot rebel. This latter fact we
discovered by degrees. Women did not gossip in
those days - not to talk was a necessary
evil - very evil and very necessary in a boarding-
house of mixed politics in Baltimore during war
times.

Mrs. Harris kept a private parlor for herself
and daughters, and here we poor rebels met
every now and then with a little less restraint,

though even here we had to be very
careful. One day a note was brought me.

"Happy greetings, dear friends! Can you
arrange without inconvenience to yourselves for
me to call, and will you allow me that pleasure?
Do not hesitate to decline if you feel so
disposed. I will understand.

"L."

There was no other signature, but we knew
the hand. Thank God! He was alive and well!
We took the note to Mrs. Harris. Of course we
would see him if we could make a way. After a
little consultation it was arranged that we
receive him in the little parlor upstairs. We
addressed an envelope to ourselves, put a blank
sheet of paper in it, sealed it, and enclosed it in a
note to the captain. The latter we did not know
how to address; we were merely to give it to his
messenger, who was waiting. We wrote:

"Delighted. Come to side entrance at half-
past eight; present enclosed and you will be
shown up.

At half-past eight we were waiting in Mrs.
Harris's private parlor - there were several
ladies there beside ourselves. Of all nights, why
couldn't they keep away this night? - when Mrs.
Harris's maid brought up the envelope we had
addressed to ourselves.

"Show him up," we said.

Why in the world wouldn't those other
women go? And would there be any callers in
the private parlor to-night?

"Dr. Moreau!" announced Mrs. Harris's
maid.

Into the room walked the "Professor," green
goggles and all. Who in the world was he
coming to see? What was he doing here any
way? And on this night of all nights when we
were looking for Captain Locke and wishing for
as few witnesses as possible! Through the open
door behind the "Professor," we caught a
glimpse of Mrs. Bonds out in the hall, following
him with curious eyes. If we could only slip
downstairs and keep the captain from coming up
to-night! And why didn't the girl bring the
captain in? Milicent was rising to go out

into the hall, when the "Professor," having
glanced around the room, approached us.

"I was invited to call on some ladies here
this evening? Am I in the wrong room?" said a
perfectly strange voice, the voice you would
expect to hear from a fossil.

We looked up in confusion. If we could only
get him out of the way before the captain
entered! He waited while we pondered how to
answer.

"What ladies do you wish to see?" I asked.

"Well, this is good! Little madam, may I
take this seat beside you?"

He dropped into the chair between us and
we caught for an instant his old merry laugh,
"nipped in the bud," it is true, for we gave him a
warning glance. Mrs. Harris was considerate
and tactful, and we not only had our corner to
ourselves, but attention and observation
diverted from us as much as possible. We were
much amused at Captain Lock's "make-up,"
and he was evidently very proud of it.

"It must be very clever for your eyes not to
have seen through it," he said. "I have

been looking up at your window and watching
you every day. I saw, too, that you made merry
at my expense. It was a great temptation to
speak to you many times, but I didn't want to
make advances nor to ask permission to call until
I knew something about how the land lay over
here."

"You don't know how anxious we have been
about you, or how glad and thankful we are to
see you," we assured him. "We have been very
uneasy at not hearing from you. Where is Mr.
Holliway?"

"God knows!" he answered gravely. "He
was afraid to follow my fortunes, I think. He left
me at Frederick. He ought to be here by now,
but if he is he is keeping very close."

"He is not here," we answered. "We have
been to see his mother and sister, and they
know nothing of him."

"Then something is wrong. He had an dea
that we might be tracked to Frederick very
easily from Berlin, and from Frederick to this
place if we came by the direct route; so he
branched off into West Virginia, intending

to reach Baltimore by a more
roundabout route than mine. Poor Holliway! he
was not well, and he was nervous and unstrung
over this trip from the first. He felt that I was
reckless and that I was throwing away my own
chance and his."

Some one in the room came near us and we
returned to generalities. Very soon after
Captain Locke made his adieux, promising to
call again when we could arrange it.

Captain Hosmer had sought opportunities for
showing special courtesies to me, but I had
rather repelled him. He was good enough,
however, to ignore my bad manners and to
persist in turning my music for me. We had
dances very often in the evenings, I playing the
same tunes for folks to dance by that I played
for the Prussians and that I play for my children.
One night, I had the audacity to rattle off the
Virginia reel, and they danced it with spirit,
every Yankee of them. My fingers were just
itching to play Dixie, and I don't know what
foolhardiness I might have been guilty of if
Captain Hosmer, who was turning my music,
had not bent over me and said:

"I would like to have a little private talk with
you, Miss Duncan. I know who you are. You
are from the South and you have run the
blockade. Your position is not free from danger.
You are suspected. Pray be careful. When you
have finished this, go upstairs and I will follow
you."

His manner was so serious that it took all the
saucy daring out of me. Perhaps it saved me
from playing Dixie. As soon as I could do so
without attracting observation, I got Milicent to
take my place, and went up-stairs to the private
parlor.

I had hardly taken my seat when he came
in.

"I was sorry to attack you so suddenly," he
said, "but you were so shy of me that it was
my only chance."

I had learned to like and to trust him; he was
honest and kind, and I told him my situation
frankly. Of course I didn't explain Captain
Locke.

"It is not so bad as it might be," he said, "But
you must have a care about your associates.
People in this house are always more

be glad to see his picture. Don't forget to bring
it down at breakfast."

But he had frozen me for the time being. I
could not talk about Dan to him when I saw it
bored him to listen, so we went back to the
original subject of our conversation. Among
other persons he spoke of Mrs. Lineman.

"I see that you are inclined to form an
intimacy there. Mrs. Lineman is in perfect
sympathy with the South, but, as you know, her
sister is not. They do not speak now, but family
differences are frequently made up. Then
confidences ensue. And Mrs. Bonds is really a
political spy for the North. She thinks the
mystery about you is deeper than it is, and you
will do well to be on your guard before her and
my brothers in arms whom you meet in this
house. Major Brooks already has suspicions
about you."

"I don't like him," I said viciously.

"Disguise that fact a little better if you can.
I don't think any of the gentlemen whom you
meet here are malicious, or that they will go out
of their way to harm you, but it is good policy to
temper your

"You are very good," I said humbly, "and I
really mean to act according to your advice."

He smiled. "You are not good at playing
the hypocrite, are you?"

"I must improve. But I really must tell
you - I don't need to be a hypocrite with you,
you know - I believe Major Brooks is
malicious."

He laughed outright. "Be careful not to
offend him, then. Ah, I am afraid my first lesson
in diplomacy will only have skin-deep results."

The next morning I did not forget Dan's
picture. I brought it down with me, and slipped it
into Captain Hosmer's hand as I passed behind
him to my seat at the breakfast table. I was
very much pleased later when he told me what
a fine fellow he thought Dan must be, and that
he thought the picture very handsome. Then I
talked about Dan again until he was
bored - when I shut up. After this I saw a great
deal of Captain Hosmer He was always so
thoroughly well-bred that

his attentions were very agreeable to me in spite
of his uniform, and I formed a warm personal
friendship and attachment for him. We were
also seeing a good deal of Captain Locke.

I thought him very reckless in visiting us as
he did, and I told him so frankly. He had doffed
his disguise, wig and all, and appeared now
every day, and sometimes oftener, at Mrs.
Harris's in his own proper person, dressed in
citizen's clothes. He came openly to the parlor in
the daytime immediately after breakfast or
lunch; and he was always there after dinner
when the parlors were thronged. Several times
he had joined the dance, selecting, by the way,
Mrs. Bonds for a partner more than once. In
fact, he singled this lady out for a number of
pleasant courtesies. I could not keep him out of
the way of the Yankee officers, and Major
Brooks was always starting up at us somewhere
like a Banquo's ghost. His eyes got sharper and
sharper until I thought they would cut me in two.
In halls and by-ways I was always coming upon
him and always getting out of his way, and I
was always surprising a cynical

little grin on his face. One day I encountered
him on the first landing of the stairway,
squarely face to face. He addressed me, wishing
me good morning gruffly, and standing in such a
position that I could not pass him without
rudeness unless he moved to one side. He did
not move, and I was at bay.

"I know who you are, Miss Duncan," he
said mischievously. "You are a good rebel now,
aren't you?"

"Yes, I am a good rebel, as you call it. I'm
a Virginian - and a rebel like Washington was,
and like Lee is."

"I thought so. And you ran the blockade to
get here."

"That's so, too. I got across at Berlin."

"I wish you'd tell me how."

I told him how. I sat down on the stairs to
talk, and my enemy sat down beside me.
Captain Hosmer came in, looked up, and saw
the confidential and apparently friendly situation,
laughed, and went on to breakfast.

"I don't call that running the blockade," he
said. "I call that storming it. I didn't think it
possible to cross at Berlin or, indeed, at any
other point. Our line at the Potomac

has been greatly strengthened and the rules
are very rigid and inspection most thorough."

"I managed to cross at Berlin because you
had such a nice provost marshal there. He knew
two little women couldn't do any harm."

"Humph! He doesn't know women as I do,
then!"

"Perhaps he had always known only very
lovely ladies," I said with the softness of a
purring cat.

He grinned. "You'll be wanting to run back
soon, I dare say."

"I reckon I will. I wish you'd help me. Can't
you tell me how?"

He laughed outright. "You are cool!" he
said.

"You know what my duty is?" he added
after a pause.

"Yes," I answered. "To fight on the right
side, but I'm afraid you'll never do that. Now, I
have been wanting to play Dixie ever since I've
been here, and I'm afraid of nobody but you.
To-night I mean to play it." But I did not. That
afternoon a card

was brought up to Milicent and me. Major
Littlebob, U. S. A., was sorry to disturb us, but
would we please step down a minute. "Major
Brooks came in with him," said the servant who
brought the message.

"Major Brooks is going to have us arrested,"
I thought in terror. Milicent also was frightened
by the message and by a call from an unknown
officer of the United States army who came
accompanied by Major Brooks. Mother
followed us in fear and trembling to the parlor
door as we went in to behold - Milicent's own
curly-headed Bobby, all rigged out in Major
Brooks's regimentals! There he was, all
swallowed up in sash, sword, and hat of a
United States major of infantry; beside him was
the major, laughing merrily. Milicent, in her
relief, bent over and kissed again and again the
fairest, softest, cutest, sweetest Major Littlebob
that ever wore the regimentals of the U. S. A.;
and it is needless to say that after this we were
never again afraid of Major Brooks.

"So, the whole purpose of your running the
blockade was a visit to your mother?" Major
Brooks had asked.

"And to accompany my sister. And - to buy
a few things - needles, pins, and so forth," I
added in confusion.

Again the major laughed at my expense.
Should I confide the Confederate uniform to him
and Captain Hosmer? I decided to draw the line
at this, as I had drawn it at Captain Locke. Of
course, Captain Locke's story was his, not mine,
and the uniform - well, the uniform was Dan's,
or, rather, I hoped it would be. It was never out of
my mind. I would have failed in half my mission if
I did not buy it and get it across the Potomac to
Dan. To buy shoes, gloves, ribbons, etc., was
an easy matter, but to buy a Confederate uniform
in Yankeeland, that was a more delicate affair. It
was Captain Locke who helped me out. He told
met where I could buy it, and offered to get it
for me himself, but he was taking so many risks
on his own account that I was determined he
should take none on mine. He directed me to a
tailoring establishment on the corner of Charles
and St. Paul's Streets. The head of this
establishment sympathized with the South and had
supplied many Southern uniforms,

and his store had a convenient double
entrance, one on St. Paul's and one on Charles
Street. One morning I went in at the Charles
Street entrance. I had chosen an early hour, and
I found no one in but the tailor.

"Walk straight on out at the other door," he
whispered. "I see two soldiers coming in from
the Charles Street side."

Without looking behind me I walked straight
on as if I had merely passed through the store to
get to the other sidewalk. I heard some one
coming rapidly behind me, and then I was joined
by Captain Hosmer.

"What are you in such a hurry for?" he
asked. "Wait a minute and I can walk home
with you. I have a commission to execute back
here."

Accordingly I returned to the store with him,
was introduced to the friend accompanying him,
and after a few moments walked home between
the two. But the tailor had given me a hint - I
was to come still earlier next day.

The next morning, however, he signaled me
to pass on as I was about to enter. At last one
morning I caught him alone long enough to get
my uniform.

"I have to be very careful lately," he
apologized for waving me off the previous day.
"These Yankees suspect me and are always on
the lookout. Now we will get the uniform in a
hurry. I have several pieces of fine Confederate
cloth just in that I will show you. Is your husband
a private?"

"Oh, no-o!" I exclaimed indignantly.

"I thought not," he said suavely. "What is
his rank?"

"He is a captain of cavalry now. That is
- he was when I left home. But I haven't heard
from him since. He may be major or colonel by
now. Can't you fix up a uniform that would do
for him if he is a captain or a colonel or a major
when I get back, or - that would do for a
general?"

"Certainly, certainly, madam. Very wise
of you to think of that."

He showed me several pieces of very fine
and beautiful cloth of Confederate gray, and
I made my selection.

"The question is, how are you to get it
across the line. In what way will you carry it?"

"Ah, that I don't know. Captain Locke
advised me to consult you."

The tailor, who seemed to have had a liberal
experience in such matters, considered for a
moment.

"Are other ladies going with you?"

"My mother."

"It is easy then. I will cut this cloth into
lengths that will be all right for the tailor who
makes the uniform. You and your mother can
make it into two Balmoral skirts. That's the way
you get your cloth home. Now for the buttons
and gold lace. Will you travel in the wrap you
have on?"

"In one like it; I shall pack this in my trunk.
The inspectors will not be so likely to condemn
this if they find it in a trunk as they would be to
condemn a new one. So I will get a new cloak
South; mother will wear another."

"I see." He was impressed with the
scheme and made a mental note of it. "Send

Cloaks of the period were long, sacque-like
affairs, double-breasted and with two rows of
buttons. The tailor changed the buttons on our
cloaks for Confederate brass buttons covered
with wadding, and then with cloth like the wrap.
The gold lace was to be folded flat and smooth.
Mother was to rip the lining from the bottom of
her satchel, lay the lace on the bottom, and
carefully paste the lining back. We wanted to
take Dan some flannel shirts, and again fashion
favored us. Ladies wore wide plaid scarfs
passed around their necks and falling in long ends
in front. We got seven yards of fine soft flannel
in a stylish plaid and cut it in two lengths. Mother,
being quite tall, could wear a longer scarf than
myself, so, between us, we managed to carry
around our necks two good shirts for Dan.

CHAPTER XVI

THE FLOWER OF CHIVALRY

IN the meantime we were growing more and
more uneasy about Captain Locke. We felt that
he was suspected and covertly watched, but he
laughed at our fears.

He and I had begun to discuss ways and
means of getting back to Virginia. One day, as
usual, he was sitting beside me in the parlor after
dinner, and, as usual, we were talking together in
low tones, and again, as usual, the parlors were
full. At one end of the room sat Major Brooks
and Colonel Whipple, honoring us now and then
with the covert and curious observation to which
I could never become hardened. Captain
Hosmer was walking restlessly up and down the
floor, and casting uneasy glances toward us. He
was too much of a gentleman to catechize me
about my friend, but I knew he was not

only curious but concerned in regard to my
intimacy with Captain Locke.

Captain Locke was saying to me that he was
in favor of our taking some schooner going
down the bay and landing somewhere in
Gloucester County, when I became so painfully
conscious that the eyes of the enemy were upon
us that I could not attend to what he was saying.

"What is the matter with you?" he asked.
"You are not thinking at all of what I am saying. I
reckon your mind is on Dan Grey."

"I am thinking about you," I said, on the
verge of tears. "If you are not more careful,
you won't get back home at all, I'm afraid."

"Why?" he asked innocently, and as if he
were the most prudent person in the world.

"Only what Milicent and I have been telling
you all along. You come here openly and boldly
in the presence of all these Yankees. You visit
us, and we feel responsible for any misfortune
that might come to you through it. It is well
known now, I think, by

everybody in the house that we are Southerners
and blockade-runners. No one in the house
except ourselves and Mrs. Harris knows who
you really are. Don't you suppose people
wonder?"

He had been introduced several times to
ladies as Mr. Moore, but we had not introduced
him generally. We did not know what to do with
him. For ourselves, we felt safe by this time, but
I never sat on that sofa by Captain Locke's side
without the fear in my heart that a sergeant-
at-arms might walk in and lay hands on his
shoulder.

"Don't you see," I went on, "how Captain
Hosmer is watching you?"

For Hosmer was watching him with a
scrutiny which could be felt in spite of all his
courteous efforts at concealment. "And can't
you see with what suspicious looks those
officers across the room regard you?"

"The last one. That is a good name. It is
nearly as common as Smith. Besides, I really
have a right to it. I came by it honestly. I have a
friend in New York by that name and he has
kindly lent it to me for emergencies. So if
anybody wants to write or telegraph to New
York about it, they will find me all right. My
cousin in New York - who really is my cousin
many degrees removed - will acknowledge me.
He is well known in business circles there."

"Whom shall I introduce you to?"

"I would rather meet those officers."

"Good gracious!"

He smiled. "They can give me more, and
more accurate, information than anybody else,
and of just the kind I want."

"You are going to get yourself shot before
you start home. I won't be responsible for you."

through this conversation under the eyes of the
enemy, as it had done before.

"Those gentlemen would hardly think me
entitled to the courtesy of a bullet," he went on
with the utmost sang-froid. "A rope is more
in accordance with my expectations if I am
caught. But I do not expect to be caught. Really,
little madam, the frank and open plan is the best.
If I were to visit you clandestinely it would
create more suspicion. Don't you see the fact
that you haven't presented me to those
gentlemen is in itself suspicious? Call those
officers up and do the honors."

"I will call Captain Hosmer," I said faintly.
"I really haven't the nerve to summon the other
two. - Captain Hosmer!" I called.

He came instantly, and I saw that he was
glad to be called.

"Captain Hosmer, let me introduce you to
my friend, Mr. Moore."

"Mr. Moore" rose, and the two gentlemen
bowed and shook hands with each other. Then
they sat down, the Federal captain on one side
of me, the rebel captain on the other,

and we had a pleasant chat. Captain Hosmer
asked "Mr. Moore" if he was related to Henry
P. Moore, of New York, and "Mr. Moore"
replied in the affirmative. Captain Hosmer knew
this gentleman very well. Captain Locke was
introduced to Major Brooks and Colonel
Whipple, and it ended by Captain Locke and
Schenck's adjutant walking down the street
together. Captain Hosmer and I watched them
from the window as they strolled past, smoking
their cigars.

"Your friend is a very handsome man," he
said.

"You think so? Dan is ever so much
handsomer."

"No doubt of it," he laughed.

The next day I said to Captain Locke:
"You - you wouldn't have to use information
received from these gentlemen in any way that
might ever hurt them, would you? We wouldn't
have to do that, would we?"

"Dear little madam, it is not probable that
they will honor me with too much confidence
No hurt could ever come to one who is kind to
you through me. My first

duty is to the South; so is yours. But honor
between man and man is honor, and friendship
is friendship, even in war times. In my life it has
sometimes been very hard to know the line."

And there rested on his face at this
moment the nearest thing to a shadow that I had
ever seen there.

"I don't want you to think I have been
reckless of your safety in coming here to see
you. I am quite sure of my ground. You are not
involved in any of my operations. And if
anything were to happen, I have friends here
who could extricate you even if they could not
save me. The principal thing I wish to find out,
now, from your Federal friends here is how you
may get back to Virginia safely - since you will
go. If I find out that my attendance on you will
be to your disadvantage, little madam, we must
give that up."

It was I who had shown most anxiety that
we should go together. While we were talking
Captain Hosmer came in, and I made room for
him on the other side of me. The two men
greeted each other cordially. They

had taken a liking to each other, and the rebel
captain said to the other:

"My friend here has just been consulting me
as to the route she had best take in getting
home. I suggested that you might advise her to
better purpose."

"I deplore Miss Duncan's determination to
go," said Captain Hosmer. "Almost any route is
unsafe just now - if possible. However, I will be
glad to do anything I can. Have you any plan
under consideration?"

"Wait a minute, captain," I said, rising. "I
will go and get a little map I have, and show you
the route which Mr. Moore advised me to take."

I went out, leaving the two officers together.
When I returned I resumed my seat between
them, spread the map open upon my lap, and
they bent over it, Federal and Confederate
heads touching, while I traced the route with my
finger.

"You see, Mr. Moore thinks I might go
down the bay in a schooner and land
somewhere here in Gloucester County."

sure to be taken up if you try that. With all due
deference to you, Mr. Moore, my knowledge of
the position of our forces convinces me that
that is impossible."

"Of course, as an officer in the army, you
must be better informed than I am," Captain
Locke said simply. "That is why I advised Miss
Duncan to consult you."

"Your best plan is to go by Harper's Ferry.
It is a difficult matter to get through anywhere
now, but if you get to Virginia at all I think it
must be by way of Harper's Ferry."

Major Brooks and Colonel Whipple joined
us, and the matter ended as on the previous
day, by Captain Locke and Colonel Whipple
walking off down the street together.

"Moore is a splendid fellow," Captain
Hosmer said to me, when we had the sofa to
ourselves. "I am glad you introduced us. Your
not doing so looked suspicious, and I was
troubled for fear he would get you into some
scrape or other."

Dear, generous fellow, how I hated to
deceive him, and how it was on the tip of my
tongue to tell him who Captain Locke was,

until I remembered what his duty would be if I
told him! And Captain Locke's secret was mine
to keep. He had been ready to risk his life rather
than leave me alone at Berlin! Then, too, poor
fellow, he had such a slender chance, I thought,
of getting home alive that not even an enemy
would care to make it worse. I used to look at
his bonnie white throat and shudder.

"God bless you," he said to me once, "for all
your goodness to a poor, lonely, stray fellow!
You shouldn't be afraid for me. You say your
'Hail Marys' for me, you know."

I had been telling him I was afraid for him,
and he had, as usual, tried to reassure me and
to laugh me out of it. He was never afraid for
himself - I believe he would have stood up to
be shot with a laugh on his lips. I wonder if he
was laughing when they shot him - my dear,
brave friend!

In the meantime we had heard that Mr.
Holliway had been arrested in West Virginia,
was lying in prison somewhere, and that his
friends were trying to get him out, and before I
left Baltimore we heard that he

My return to Virginia was the subject of
daily discussions between me and my two
captains, and in this way Captain Locke
continued to find out ways that he must not go,
and eventually that we must not go together. It was
he who first said it.

"I should be no earthly good, but a
disadvantage to you, little madam. Hosmer is
going to see you through this thing all
right."

Then, seeing my downcast look, he went on
cheerily: "I'll get through somehow all or later,
and we'll meet in Old Virginia. Don't bother
your dear little head about me."

Captain Hosmer tried in vain to dissuade
me from going. He felt that the journey under
present conditions would be uncomfortable
and unsafe, and that it was in every way advisable
for me to stay where I was. But I was beginning
to be very uneasy about Dan. I had heard from him
only once since reaching Baltimore. Then his letters
came in a batch, and I received them through the

kindly agency of Mr. Cridland, British consul at
Richmond, who had been my father's personal
friend and frequent guest, and who had dandled
a small person named "Nell" on his knee many
times. Captain Hosmer still insisted that I must
go by Harper's Ferry if I went at all, and he said
that a pass was necessary.

"How on earth am I to get it?" I asked.

"I must arrange that for you," he said.

I think one reason that Captain Hosmer was
so good to me was because his wife was a
Southern woman. Her parents were Southern,
her brothers were in the Southern army, and her
husband was a Federal officer. They loved each
other, but somehow they were separated, she
living South with her parents. Under the
pressure of the times there was a sectional
conscience, and people did things which they did
not wish to do, because they thought it was right.
I don't know what I should have done then if I
had been situated as Mrs. Hosmer was, but I
know that at the present time I should stick to
Dan, no matter what flag he fought under.

The captain had a beautiful country-seat
several miles out of town. We had heard much
of this place and its old-time hospitalities; and
we also heard that it had been virtually closed
since Captain Hosmer's separation from his wife.
The captain went there frequently alone, and
occasionally with a few friends, but the place
had known no festivity since its mistress had
gone away on that visit from which, by the way,
she returned before we left Baltimore.

But before she came back there was a stag
party at the captain's country place, given in
honor of General Fish, the provost marshal at
Baltimore, and other prominent officers.

The next time I saw Captain Hosmer he
had a smile for me.

"You will get your passes," he said. "I have
spoken to General Fish for them."

Milicent had decided that she could not risk
little Bobby on such a journey and at this
season, but mother was to go with me . The day
before we were to start she and I

went down to General Fish's office. He was out,
but an orderly told us rather rudely to sit down
and wait, which invitation or command we
humbly acted upon. Presently General Fish
entered. We stated our case.

"We are Southerners, general, and we
wish to go south by way of Harper's Ferry."
"Mrs. and Miss Duncan, I think you said?"

"Yes, general."

"You are the ladies I heard of from Captain
Hosmer, then?"

We gave him a note from Captain Hosmer.

"Excuse me, ladies, while I read this, and I
will see what I can do for you."

He finished the note and then said:

"That's all right. I will make out your
passes, ladies," and in a few minutes the
important papers were in our hands.

"These will take you to General Kelly at
Harper's Ferry. There my power ends. You will
find General Kelly courteous and considerate,
though I make no promises for him, understand.
I will furnish you an escort to Harper's Ferry,
and an officer will be sent to

your boarding-house this afternoon to examine
your baggage. Your address, please." He wrote
a few words rapidly, and called the orderly:

"Take that order," he said.

The orderly saluted and got as far as the
door, then he turned.

"Do these women go?" he asked of the
general.

"These ladies go. Obey my order, sir!"

Upon which the orderly went quickly about
his business.

When the officer came to examine our
baggage I was on thorns. I had come north
intending to make certain purchases, and I had
made them, and the fruit of my money and labors
was in those two trunks of mother's and mine.
Mother's trunk was quite a large one, and both
of those honest-looking trunks to which I yielded
the keys so freely were crammed with dishonest
goods - that is, dishonest according to blockade
law. I had paid good gold for them, and anxiety
enough, Heaven knows, for them to be properly
mine. I had shoes in the bottom of those trunks,

and on top of the shoes cloth made into the
semblance of female wear and underwear; and,
lastly, I had put in genuine every-day garments.
There were handkerchiefs, pins, needles, gloves,
thread, and all sorts of odds and ends between
the folds of garments, here, there, and
everywhere in those trunks. They were as
contraband trunks as ever crossed into Dixie.
But, again, my Yankee was a gentleman.

"This is an unpleasant duty, miss," he said
when I handed him my keys, "but I will
disarrange your property as little as possible. It is
only a form."

The orderly lifted the trays and set them
back again, scarcely glancing underneath. What
a dear, nice Yankee, I thought! He locked the
trunks and sealed them.

"Will those seals be broken anywhere, and
my trunks examined again?" I asked in some
trepidation - this examination was so
satisfactory to me that I wanted it to do for one
and all.

"I can not tell, miss. They may be at
Harpers Ferry. But I hardly think so. I think
this seal will carry you through."

CHAPTER XVII

PRISONERS OF THE UNITED STATES

THE officer who had examined our trunks
the previous day took the trunks to the depot in a
wagon, mother and I going in a
hack. After we got on the train, our officer,
Lieutenant Martin, joined us, and made himself
very agreeable. The beginning of that journey
was most pleasant. The scenery along the road
to Harper's Ferry is at all times beautiful, and as
we drew nearer to the ferry our car ran by the
side of the Potomac, so that from one window
we looked across the river to the Virginia
Heights, and from the other to the Heights of
Maryland. It was afternoon and growing dark
when we reached Harper's Ferry.

There we found something like a riot going on,
shouting and noises of all sorts, and the town
full of drunken soldiers. We were told that
there had been fighting in the valley,

that the Federals had won, and that the men
had just been paid off, and were celebrating
victory and enjoying pay and booty in regular
soldier fashion. Through this shouting rowdy mob
mother and I passed under our Federal escort to
the tavern.

When we reached the tavern, a miserable
little place full of drunken soldiers, our kind escort
told us that his duty was at an end, and that he
must take the return train to Baltimore. I think he
hated to leave us under such unsafe
circumstances, but he scarcely had time to settle
us in the reception-room, shake hands, and catch
his train. Here mother and I sat, debating what
we should do. Of course, we were extremely
anxious to get out of the place. We called a
waiter and asked him if he could tell us where
we could hire a vehicle to take us a part of our
journey, or the whole of it. He knew of nothing
that we could get. Then we went out on the
porch, disagreeable as this was, and made
inquiries of everybody who seemed sober enough
to answer, but to no purpose. We could find no
way of getting out of Harper's Ferry that night.

Thoroughly frightened, we asked to be
shown to the commanding officer of the place,
and were ushered into General Kelly's office,
which, fortunately, was attached to the
tavern - really a part of it.

General Kelly rose when we entered, saw
us seated, and was as courteous as possible,
while we stated the case and asked his advice
He heard us patiently, and was very
sympathetic.

"I don't know what to say, ladies. I have no
authority to send you on."

"Then what will we do, general?"

"I can not say. I can, of course, give you
passes, but you will find it impossible to hire
anything here to travel in just now. The best you
could get would be an ox-cart or a broken-down
wagon, and the roads are almost impassable for
good strong vehicles. And, besides, it is not safe
for you to travel except under military escort,
which, as I have said, I have no authority to
furnish. There has been a great deal of fighting
in the valley, and the roads are lined with
stragglers If you were prisoners now I could put
you under escort and send you through our lines

"And this is not a fit place for you to spend
the night in, as you can see for yourselves," he
pursued, very much in the manner of a Job's
comforter. "The tavern is thronged with
drunken men, and the whole town is overrun
with them."

"Would it not be best for us to return to
Baltimore?" we asked humbly. We had almost
made up our minds to going back.

"That would be best, certainly - if you can."

"Why, can't we go back? We had no idea
that we wouldn't be allowed to go back if we
wanted to."

"Well, you see, ladies, you are in the position
of Southerners sent south. The policy of the
Government encourages the sending of all
Southerners in Maryland south to stay. I am
only explaining, that you may understand that it
may be difficult for me to assist you, in spite of
my willingness to do so. I can not send you back
without authority from General Fish. I will
telegraph to him

at once, and do my best for you. My orderly will
see you back to the tavern. And I will notify you
when I hear from General Fish."

So we returned to the reception-room of the
tavern. Among the groups thronging the tavern
were a few graycoats who had been captured
the day before. One of these prisoners, a tall,
handsome man, walked restlessly up and down
the room where we sat, his guard keeping
watch on him. As he passed back and forth I
looked at him sorrowfully, putting into my eyes
all the sympathy and encouragement I dared.

There was something in his look when he
returned mine that made me think he wanted to
speak to me. Every time he passed I thought I
saw his eyes growing more and more wistful
under their drooping lids.

Without seeming to notice him I moved
about the room until I got to a window which
was in the line of his restless beat. I stood
there, my back turned to him, apparently looking
out of the window, until I disarmed the
suspicion of the guard. Then I settled down
into a seat, my side to the window, my back
to the guard, my face to the prisoner

when the turn in his beat brought him toward
me. A swift glance showed him that I was on
the alert. Not a muscle of his face changed - he
was facing the guard - but when he turned and
came back, as he passed me he dropped these
words.

"Going south?"

He walked to the end of the room and
turned. Coming back, he faced me and the
guard. As he passed I said:

"Yes."

When he came back, he said - always with
his head drooped and speaking below his breath
and so that his lips could hardly be seen to
move:

"Take a message?"

When he passed back I said:

"Yes."

Returning: "Get word to Governor Vance
of North Carolina - "

To the end of his beat, turning and passing
again in silence, then as he walked with his
back to the guard:

This was the last he had opportunity to say.
I saw the orderly coming in. Before Lieutenant
Vance was near enough to catch another word
from me, the orderly stood before me, a
telegram in his hand. It was from General Fish
to General Kelly:

"The ladies were sent south at their own
request. I decline further connection with the
matter."

"I will," I said clearly and firmly, and looking
straight into the eyes of Lieutenant Vance, who
was then passing close by me.

The little Yankee was staggered by the
unnecessary amount of resolution expressed in
my reply. I kept my eyes focused on the spot
where Mr. Vance had been for some seconds
after he had passed. Then I turned to my little
Yankee. I had snubbed him severely heretofore,
but I was humbled by extremity, and willing
enough now to listen if he could tell us how to
get away from this place.

"Tell us how we can get sent on," I asked.

"Just step out there in the street and holler
for Jeff Davis, and you'll get sent on quick
enough!"

We withered him with a stare, and then
turned our backs on him, and at the same
moment two ladies entered the room whom we
recognized. They were Mrs. Drummond and
Miss Oglesby, whose acquaintance we had
made in Baltimore, and they, too, were going
south. They explained that they had been in this
wretched place since yesterday, and that they
were not allowed to

return to Baltimore and were unable to go home.
They had been out trying to find a conveyance
of some sort, but had been able to secure only
the promise of an ox-cart, and hearing that
we were here had come in to consult with us.
During all this time the orderly, whom I had
detained, was waiting impatiently. We decided
to go with him and make another appeal to
General Kelly. Accordingly the whole party filed
into General Kelly's office again.

"What are we to do, general?" I cried out
in desperation. "We can't go back, we can't go
on, and we can't stay here!"

The kindly general did honor to the stars he
wore - he was a gentleman, every inch of him.
It happened later that he was captured and held
in Libby Prison in Richmond, and I was in
Richmond and didn't know it. I have held a
grudge against fate ever since. If I had only
known, he would have been reminded by every
courtesy that a Southern woman could render of
how gratefully his kindness was remembered.

"I hardly hoped for a different answer from
General Fish, ladies. The regulations on

this point are very stringent. And I can not
return you to Baltimore unless you take the oath
of allegiance."

"What?" we asked eagerly.

"If you take the oath of allegiance, I can
send you back."

We decided to do this.

We didn't know exactly what the oath was,
but we thought we could take anything to get us
out of our scrape. We told General Kelly we
would take it, and we were conducted into
another room, which I can only remember as
being full of Federal soldiers. We were marched
up to a desk where a man began reading the
oath to us. It was the famous "ironclad." We
did not wait for him to get through. Without a
word each of us turned and marched back into
General Kelly's office, as indignant a set of
women as could be found.

He was looking for us - doubtless he knew by
previous experience the effect the reading of
that oath produced upon Southern women - and
he burst out laughing as our procession filed
back into his room.

take that horrid thing! We are Southerners, and
our kinsmen and friends are Southern soldiers."

"I almost knew you wouldn't take that oath,
ladies, when I sent you there."

"General," I said, "this is the most remarkable
position I ever knew people to be in
- where you can't go back, and can't go
forward, and can't stay where you are. I don't
know what you are to do with us, general,
unless you hang us to get us out of the way."

He laughed heartily.

"I must do something a little better than
that for you. My orderly will take you back to
the tavern, and you will hear from me in an
hour."

We went with Mrs. Drummond and Miss
Oglesby to their room. Before the hour was up
we were escorted to another interview with
General Kelly. The general beamed on us.

"Here is a telegram I received in your
absence," he said, handing it to us:

"Mrs. and Miss Duncan are dear friends
of mine. Can you see them through? If not,

"How could he have found out the trouble
we were in?" we asked in wonder.

"I don't know. News of the fighting in
the valley and the conditions of things here
reached Baltimore soon after you left there.
Hosmer perhaps got an idea of your situation
through General Fish. He may have gone to
Fish's office to inquire. Hosmer is a capital
fellow and an old friend of mine. I had about
determined on what to do for you before I
heard from him, but I thought it would please
you to know of his message. I will ask you
to return to the tavern, ladies, and exercise
a little further patience. You will hear from
me soon."

This time we waited only a little while
before an orderly rapped at the door to say

Our escort consisted of five soldiers who
followed us, sitting in a wagon on our baggage.
That afternoon we passed through Charlestown,
and there Captain Goldsborough pointed out to
us the house in which John Brown had
lived - an ordinary two-story frame house.

As well as I can remember we reached
Berryville about nine o'clock. Our ambulance
drew up in front of the tavern, and Captain
Goldsborough went in to see about getting
accommodations for us. He came out quickly
and said, "This is no fit place tonight for you,
ladies. I am informed that there is an old couple
on the hill who may take us in. I hear, too, that
they are good

Confederates," he added mischievously. Of
course lights were out and everybody asleep
when we drove up, but our driver went in and
beat on the door until he waked the old people
up. They received us kindly, and the old lady got
a supper for us of cold meats and slices of loaf
bread, butter, milk, preserves, and hot coffee
which she must have made herself as no
servants were in the house at that hour; and we
had a comfortable room with two beds in it. The
old lady came in and chatted with us awhile,
telling us all she knew about our army's
movements, and listening eagerly to what people
in Maryland had to say about the war. We were
very tired, but I am sure it must have been one
o'clock when we went to sleep. At daybreak
there came a great banging at the front door.
Mother put her head out of the front window and
inquired who was trying to break the door down.

It was our driver, and there at the gate stood
our ambulance. The driver hurried us
desperately, saying we had not a moment to
lose. The noise had aroused our hosts, and when
we got down the old lady had

"I was hoping to have you a nice hot
breakfast," she said, "but since you must go in
such a hurry this is the best I can do. If I had
known you were going to make such an early
start I would have got you a hot breakfast
somehow."

We swallowed our food hurriedly, but
this did not satisfy our driver. Every few minutes
he came down on the door with the butt end of
his whip. Finally we left off eating, ran up-stairs,
and gathered up our bags. As we hurried down,
almost falling over each other in our haste, we
saw a magnificent-looking soldier standing in
the hall. He was in the full uniform of a colonel
of cavalry, glittering with gold lace, with
gauntlets reaching his elbows, and high
military boots.

"Mrs. Duncan and Miss Duncan, I
suppose," he said with a sweeping bow, "and - "

"Mrs. Drummond and Miss Oglesby," we
said of the ladies who came behind us.

"I am Colonel McReynolds, commandant
at this place, and at your service, ladies,"

he continued. "I have to apologize for not
paying my respects to you last night upon receipt
of General Kelly's letter asking me to take
charge of you. The lateness of the hour must be
my excuse. At the time Captain Goldsborough
presented it I had a number of important
despatches to attend to, and I supposed you were
tired out and in need of rest."

We expressed our appreciation of his
courtesy and General Kelly's thoughtfulness.

"What is all this?" he asked, pointing to our
ambulance, baggage wagon, and impatient
driver.

We explained that they were the
conveniences furnished us by General Kelly.

"But you surely do not propose starting off
in such weather as this, ladies?"

I have neglected to say that it had been
storming since daybreak.

"The driver has been beating on the doors
since before day," somebody said.

"He has, has he? Then he has exceeded his
instructions. He had no right whatever to disturb
you, ladies. I will see that he is reported."

"Pray don't feel that you must leave us in
such weather as this, ladies," he continued with
the utmost kindness. "Stay here a week if you
like. That ambulance and wagon and those men
and horses are at your service as long as you
choose to keep them here, and we will be glad to
do whatever we may for your comfort or
pleasure until it suits your own convenience to
leave us."

We hardly knew how to thank this princely
young enemy, but we insisted that
the driver should not be punished, and that we
should be allowed to proceed on our journey, as
we were anxious to reach our friends and
kindred.

He rode in our ambulance with us to his
headquarters, where we were joined by our
other charming enemy, and, making our adieux
to the gallant and handsome colonel, continued
our journey.

During the day something happened to
Captain Goldsborough's watch, and it stopped
running, much to his annoyance.

I pulled my watch out and held it open for
him to see the time. I could have told him what
hour it was. I don't know what made me such a
reckless little creature in those days. The watch
I held to him had a tiny Confederate flag pasted
inside. My companions had either secreted their
watches or were not traveling with them. I had
been urged to do the same, but had openly worn
my watch ever since leaving Baltimore. Captain
Goldsborough saw the hour, and he saw the flag
also. He stared at me in utter amazement.

"You are brave - or reckless," he said.

"I know this is contraband goods, and,
according to your ideas, treasonable. Will you
confiscate it?" quietly holding it out again.

His face flushed.

"Not I! but some one else might. You are
not prudent to wear that openly."

And I was so ashamed of myself for hurting
his feelings that I made amends in rather too
warm terms, I am afraid, considering

"You are traveling in the wrong direction, I
think, Miss Duncan," he ventured to say after
awhile. "You shouldn't leave the North and go
south now."

"Why?"

"I - I shouldn't think you would receive the
attention there just now that is your due. You are
young and fond of society, I imagine.
And - there are so few beaux in the South
now - I shouldn't think you would like that."

"Really?"

"I mean that I wish you would stay up North
where it is pleasanter. It's so - uncomfortable
down South. You are so young, you see, you
ought to have a chance to enjoy life a little. I - I
wish you were up here - and I could add a little
to your happiness. I - I mean," catching a
glance which warned him, "it is must be dull for
you in the South - no beaux - no nothing."

"All the beaux are in the field," I retorted,
"where they ought to be. I wouldn't have a beau
who wasn't, and if I were a

informed, were prisoners of the United States.
They had an ambulance like ours, a baggage
wagon like ours, and a similar escort of five
infantry perched on trunks. Their escort who rode
inside, however, was not so attractive as ours.
We felt and expressed much commiseration for
them because they were prisoners - " those poor
Jews," we called them.

We were all suffering the consequences
of late and early hours, and of the worry and
excitement at Harper's Ferry. I felt almost ill,
and when Miss Oglesby, whose home was in
Winchester, invited us to spend a week with her,
we concluded that we would accept her
hospitality until better able to continue our
journey.

Winchester was the most difficult of all
places for Southerners to pass through at this
time, and we could not possibly have gotten
through if we had been left to our own
resources. Milroy was commandant, and his
name was a terror. He belonged to the Ben
Butler of New Orleans type. Some time near the
middle of the day we drew up in front of
Milroy's headquarters. Immediately

behind us came the Jews and their belongings.
They did not go in with us, and I supposed they
were awaiting their turn. General Milroy was
absent, off on a fight, and we fell into the hands
of his adjutant, a dapper little fellow. We heard
him talking to Goldsborough of the recent fight
and victory, and heard him making arrangements
for our transportation.

Here we thought it proper to inform him that
we were going to remain a week in Winchester.

"You can not remain here," he said. "You
go on immediately."

"Oh, no!" we said, "we're not going on
now. We are going to stop here for a visit and
until we are rested."

"You are prisoners and under orders. You
go at once - " he began bruskly.

"Oh, no!" we interrupted, eager to enlighten
him, for we saw he had made a very natural
mistake. "We are not prisoners. Those poor
Jews out there, they are prisoners. We are
going to stop here on a little visit."

Miss Oglesby's destination, and she stops, but
the rest of you go on - now."

He looked as if he thought us demented.
Goldsborough kept making faces at us, but we
were so anxious to correct the adjutant's mistake
that we had no attention to bestow elsewhere.
We thought we had never seen so stupid a man
as that adjutant.

"We are not the prisoners," we insisted.
"Those Jews out there - "

Here he told Captain Goldsborough to
conduct "these prisoners" down-stairs and into
the ambulance provided for them. "You will not
go far before you meet a detachment of cavalry
on their way to this place," he informed Captain
Goldsborough, and then instructed him to turn
back of these a sufficient escort for our party.

We were in a perfect rage as Captain
Goldsborough led us down-stairs. We thought
Milroy's adjutant the very rudest and stupidest
person we had ever seen.

CHAPTER XVIII

WITHIN OUR LINES

AFTER leaving the saucy and peremptory
adjutant we were shown into the handsomest
ambulance I have ever seen. I suppose the one
we had been using was returned to Harper's
Ferry or left at Winchester for the horses to rest
until Captain Goldsborough's return. At any rate,
we were in new quarters, and very elegant ones
they were. The sides and seats were cushioned
and padded, and it was really a luxurious coach.
It was drawn by four large black horses with
coats like silk. There was a postilion on the seat,
and beside him sat a small boy who kept peeping
behind us and into the woods on all sides, and as
far ahead as possible. I didn't know what he was
trying to see or find out, but I came to the
conclusion that he was there to "peep" on
general principles.

Captain Goldsborough what upon earth that
impertinent adjutant meant by referring to us as
"prisoners," and ordering us about so.

Whereupon he explained with much
embarrassment and many apologies that we
were really prisoners - that General Kelly could
not have sent us through without the formality of
putting us under arrest.

"I wish," he said in an aside to me, "that I
didn't have to release you."

Of course we were perfectly satisfied to be
General Kelly's prisoners under such
circumstances. In fact, we charged Captain
Goldsborough to tell him how nice we thought it
was to be put under arrest by him.

We withdrew our charges against the
adjutant, and even acknowledged that there was
kindness in the pert little Yankee's telling us to
"holler for Jeff Davis and we'd get sent on quick
enough."

Six miles from Winchester we met the
detachment of cavalry to which Milroy's
adjutant had referred. It was a
magnificent-looking body of men, handsomely
uniformed and mounted. As they were about to
dash past us Captain Goldsborough halted them,

gave an order, and instantly thirty riders wheeled
out of line and surrounded the ambulance, the
others riding on without a break in their
movements. Captain Goldsborough had gotten
out of the ambulance some minutes before we
met the detachment of cavalry, and was sitting
with the driver, having sent the little boy inside. It
sounds rather a formidable position for a
Southern woman, a blockade-runner, in a
Yankee ambulance, and surrounded by thirty
Yankees armed to the teeth; but I was never
safer in my life. The little boy was in a state of
terror that would have been amusing if it had not
been pitiful.

"What are all these men around the
ambulance for?" I asked. He didn't look as if he
could get his wits together at once.

"Are they afraid we will get away?" I
continued.

"Oh, no'm! no'm!" he answered, his eyes
as big as saucers. "There's been lots of
fightin' - an' there's rebels all along here in the
woods - and they'd come out and take this
here ambulance an' these here horses - an' we
all, an' you all, an' all of us!"

A novel position, truly, Yankees protecting
us against our own soldiers! We met another
company of soldiers, and alas! we could turn
back none of them. They were not mounted, they
were not handsomely uniformed. From the
windows of our ambulance we looked out on
them with tearful eyes, and waved our
handkerchiefs to them; but their heads were
bowed, and they did not see us. They would
hardly have believed we were prisoners if they
had seen us, for our escort of Union cavalry the
whole time they guarded us treated us as if we
were queens. Not one profane word did we
hear - not a syllable that breathed anything but
respect and kindly feeling.

At Newtown we were released and were
Union prisoners no longer, but Southern travelers
close to the Southern lines and on our own
responsibility. Captain Goldsborough bade us
adieu, saying that he was sorry he could not take
us farther, but that his orders compelled him to
turn back here, and we poured out our gratitude
to him and to Colonel McReynolds and General
Kelly by him. He put a little sentiment into a
farewell

pressure of my hand, and I am afraid I put a
great deal too much gratitude and penitence into
my eyes. My genius for friendship had asserted
itself, and I was fast learning to give him a
companion niche in my heart with Captains
Hosmer and Locke. Another day with him, and I
would have told him I was married, showed him
Dan's picture, bored him with Dan, and found in
him all the better friend and good comrade.

Our hearts sank as our gallant bluecoat, our
cozy ambulance, and our cavalry guard left us,
three lonely women in the tavern at Newtown.
We spent the night there, and the next morning
secured, with much difficulty, a small,
uncovered, one-horse wagon to take us on our
journey. We were very much crowded. Our
trunks were piled up in it - mother's, Mrs.
Drummond's, and my own. I made mother as
comfortable as possible, and Mrs. Drummond
carefully made herself so, while I sat on the seat
with the driver, a trunk sticking in my back all
the way. I had to sit almost double because of
the trunk, the wagon being so small that no other
arrangement was possible.

Rain had fallen plentifully here. The day was
one of fogs and mists with occasional light
showers, the roads were muddy and seamed
with ruts, over which the wagon jogged up and
down, and I jogged with it, feeling as if my back
would break in two and almost wishing it would
and end my misery. About nine of that miserable
wet night we hailed with eager, glad, tired hearts
and eyes the lights of Woodstock. Here we
knew we should find Southern forces encamped,
here we knew we should be at home among our
own people. Just outside the town a voice rang
through the darkness:

"Halt!"

A sentry stood in our path.

"We are Southerners," we said. "Let us
pass."

"Where are your papers?"

"Papers? We haven't any papers. We are
Southerners, we tell you - Southern ladies, and
we are in a hurry, and you must let us pass right
now."

"Here, we've come all the way from
Baltimore, and the Yankees have sent us and
have brought us all the way in a fine ambulance
and cavalry escorts and big horses and gold lace
and everything, and now we've got home, and
our own people won't let us in! tell us to turn
back!"

The sentry seemed impressed. Rags and
musket, he was a pathetic if stern figure as he
stood in that lonely, muddy road in the glare of
our driver's lantern.

But he was firm. He told us that he was
obeying orders and could not let us by since we
had no passes.

"I'm so tired, and my back is almost broken
with this trunk sticking into it," I moaned.

"That ain't comfortable," he admitted, but his
resolute position in the middle of the road
showed that we couldn't pass, all the same.

"Look here," I said, plucking up some of my
accustomed spirit, "do you know that my
husband is an officer in the Confederate army?
My husband is Captain Grey."

"And my brother," said Mrs. Drummond,
"is a colonel in the Confederate army. To think
that I - I, the sister of Colonel am told that I can't pass here!"

"Law, ma'am! that's my colonel!" said the
man. "I tell you what I'll do, ladies. I'll send a
note in to the colonel and see what he says
about it."

So we waited till he found a passer-by who
would be a messenger; and then we waited until
the messenger replied to the note, and we were
permitted to pass.

Soon after we reached the tavern the news
of our arrival and exploits got abroad and soon
the little tavern parlor was filled with people
listening to the tales of the blockade-runners
who were just from Yankeeland, bringing a
trunk or two full of clothes. The news of our
doughty deeds spread from house to house, and
soldiers gathered in front of the tavern and gave
us ringing cheers, and welcomed us home with
all their lung power. Poor, ragged fellows! how I
did wish that mother and I had worn home a
hundred or two more Balmorals!

We were traveling now in a comfortable
spring wagon, and made good time, reaching
Harrisonburg in time to take the train for
Staunton.

As we sat in the parlor of the hotel in
Staunton who should walk in but an old friend and
cousin of Dan's, Lieutenant Nelson! But he could
tell me nothing about Dan - he did not even
know where he could be found. This was just
before the second battle of the Wilderness, and
the cavalry was being shifted constantly from
place to place. But if Lieutenant Nelson could
tell us nothing, he was greatly interested in our
exploits. He told him of the Balmorals with
pride.

"And here are two shirts for Dan," I said,
pulling at our long scarfs. "Just think of our
getting through with a full uniform - cloth, brass
buttons, gold lace, and all!"

As at Woodstock, the story of our prowess
spread. It went from one person to another until
the soldiers got hold of it, and gathered around
the hotel and more ringing cheers were given us.

The next morning we took the train for
Richmond - but we did not get there.

"We been havin' a heap o' fightin'. The
kurnel, he warn't thar at Beverly Ford, an' we
didn't have but one squadron, an' the adjutant, he
led the charge an' he sholy come mighty nigh
gittin' killed. Lor'm! what's the matter with ye?"

"Nothing! Go on! Make haste, tell me
- make haste. The adjutant - "

"His horse got shot under him, an' his
courier ridin' right 'longside o' him got killed, an'
the adjutant warn't hurt, not a mite But, Lortm!
that was sholy a narrer escape! An' they say
that the adjutant'll git promoted."

"Yes, I am. And I am glad to meet one of
his soldiers. And you are the first to tell me good
news."

"Lor'm, now, ain't I proud o' that! An' you
our adjutant's wife. You don't say! An' I jes been
a-tellin' you how it was a'mos' a mi-racle that
you warn's a widder 'omen! An' you never let
on! But I see you changed your face, marm,
when I tole 'bout his pretty nigh gitting shot. Yes,
marm; the adjutant charged beautiful! he jes rid
right squar into 'em, an' he made the Yankees git!"

"How long do you think the Thirteenth will
remain in Culpeper?"

"That I couldn't say for certain, marm. They
mought be thar for a day or two, an' they
mought be thar longer. You can't always tell
much 'bout what the cavalry gwine to do. But
we's sho proud o' the adjutant, marm. Ginral Lee
an' Ginral Stuart an' Kunnel Chambliss all give
him the praise."

"My husband's regiment is in Culpeper," I
said; "I have just heard it from one of his men,
and I want you to put me off at Gordonsville. I
have decided not to go on to Richmond, but to
take the next train to Culpeper."

"The next train to Culpeper, ma'am - I
think the next train for Culpeper passes
Gordonsville at four in the afternoon. There's no
train before that, I know, and I am not sure that
there's one at four. There's no tavern nor
anything to put you down at - I'll just have to
set you out on the roadside."

And it was on a red roadside that we and
our baggage were set down, on a bank of red
mud, and there sat we on top of them as the
train rolled away. The conductor left us
regretfully.

"Maybe you might get accommodations at
that house up there, ma'am," he had said,
pointing to the only house in sight, a two-story
white dwelling about a quarter of a

mile distant. "I don't know what else you'll do if
that train don't come along at four."

This was ten o'clock in the morning. Four
o'clock came, but no train. We waited faithfully
for it, but it did not come at all. At last we gave
up hope and paid a boy to carry our trunks to the
house on the hill. I shall never forget our
reception at that house. At first they refused to
take us at all. After arguing the point with them
and placing our necessities before them, and
promising to pay them anything they might wish;
we were thankful to get a gruff:

"Come in."

We were shown to a room and shut in like
horses. There was not even a fire made for us.
We had been warmer sitting on the roadside in
the sunshine. I will pass over the supper in
silence. We had had no dinner and were hungry,
and we ate for our part of that supper the upper
crust of a biscuit each. A hard bed, the upper
crusts of two biscuits, no fire - this was what we
got at that house. The next morning we left
before breakfast and went back to our mudbank
in the sun, first asking for our bill

The train came along early, however, and we
were on it, and off to Culpeper, all our troubles
forgotten, for every mile was bringing us nearer
to Dan. As soon as we got off I saw quite a
number of soldiers belonging to Dan's command.
Many of them were known to me personally.
They came up and welcomed me back to Dixie,
and congratulated me on my husband's gallantry
and probable promotion, and I sent word to Dan
by them that I was there.

He came - the raggedest, most
widowed-looking officer! But weren't we happy!

"Oh, Dan! " I cried, after the first rapture of
greeting, "I got it so it would do for a captain or
a major or a colonel or a general. Didn't I do
right?"

"What are you talking about, Nell? Got
what?"

He looked as if he feared recent adventures
had unsettled my intellect.

Just like a man! He had forgotten the
principal thing - next to seeing mother, of course
that I had gone to Baltimore for.

"Your uniform, Dan. I've got it on. Here it
is," and I lifted my skirt and showed him my
Balmoral. "Isn't it a beautiful cloth? And I have
kept it just as nice - not a fleck of mud on it. And
here are the buttons on my cloak, and I have the
gold lace in mother's satchel, and - "

"Nell, dear, I haven't time to talk about
uniforms now. You will sleep here to-night.
To-morrow I will try to get a room for you at Mr.
Bradford's. I will come in the morning or send
you word what to do. I am so sorry to go, but I
can't stay a minute longer. Good-by, my darling."

I was waked the next morning by a voice
under my window calling:

"Miss Nell! O Miss Nell!" and looking out I
saw Dan's body-servant, Sam, successor to
poor Josh, who had died of smallpox.

"Dat's jes what I gwine to do, Miss Nell. Me
lef' de major ef he git hu't! shuh!"

"Good-by, Sam. Tell your master I'm gone."

"Yes'm. He'll sho be p'intedly glad ter heah
dat!"

Just fifteen minutes in which to catch the
train. We threw things pell-mell into our
trunks - there was no vehicle to be had - paid a
man to drag them to the depot, and were on our
way to Orange in less than half an hour. And I
had seen Dan, all told, perhaps fifteen minutes!

At Orange we found everything in confusion,
and everybody who could get out leaving the
town. The story went that the Yankee cavalry
under Stoneman would soon be in possession of
it. We were glad enough to keep our seats and
go straight through to Richmond, and it was well
that we did, for

behind us came Stoneman's cavalry close on our
heels and tearing up bridges as they came. The
railroad track at Trevillian's was torn up just
after we passed over it. Richmond was in a
state of great excitement. Couriers were passing
to and fro between the army and the executive
offices, stirring news kept pouring in, and the
newspapers were in a fever. Tidings from the
first battle of the Wilderness began coming in.
Lee's army and "Fighting Joe" Hooker's were
grappling with each other there like tigers in a
jungle. Stuart, our great cavalry leader, had
caught up Jackson's mantle as it fell, and was
riding around in that valley of death, charging his
men to "Remember Jackson!" and singing in
that cheery voice of his which only death could
drown: "Old Joe Hooker, won't you Come Out
of the Wilderness?" Then came news of victory
and Richmond was wild with joy and wild with
woe as well. In many homes were vacant chairs
because of that battle in the Wilderness, and
from Petersburg, twenty miles away, came the
sound of mourning, Rachel weeping for her
children and refusing to be comforted because
they were not.

It was from Petersburg that I was
summoned to Culpeper by Dan, who felt that the
army might have a long enough breathing spell
there for me to pay him at least a visit. When I
got to Mr. Bradford's, where he had engaged
board for me, I found General Stuart's
headquarters in the yard. He and his staff were
boarders at Mr. Bradford's, and I ate at the
same table with the flower of the Southern
cavalry. Unfortunately for me, Dan's command
was stationed at a distance of several miles, and
I could not see as much of him as I had hoped.
He met me the day of my arrival, rode by once
or twice, took one or two meals with me, and
then it seemed that for all I saw of him I might
as well have remained in Petersburg.

My seat at table was next to that of General
Stuart, and for vis-à-vis I had Colonel John
Esten Cooke. Colonel Cooke was a glum old
thing, but General Stuart was so delightful that
he compensated for everything. In a short time I
was completely at my ease with him, and long
before he left I had grown to love and trust him.

reading and pay no attention to him. A
miserable old book it was - Children of the
Abbey, or something like it - that I had
picked up somewhere at Mr. Bradford's.
Hereafter, if I write "Aunt Sally's" instead
of Mr. Bradford's, please understand that one
and the same place is meant. Aunt Sally was
Mr. Bradford's wife, and I reckon the first term
best describes the place.

"You wouldn't really rather have Dan Grey
sitting here in this chair beside you than
me?" continued my tease.

I lifted my eyes to him wet with vexation and
longing.

"I'll make you smile now!" he said. "Do you
want to see Dan?"

"Yes, I do. I want to see him dreadfully, but
I am not going to tell you so again."

"You will if I command you to, won't you? If
you are in the cavalry I am your superior
officer, you know. I can even make Dan mind
what I say, can't I? If you are refractory, I can
command Dan to bring you to terms."

"I'd like to see Dan do it! You may be
Commander-in-chief of the cavalry, but you

"It seems not," he commented meekly. "You
are the most insubordinate little rebel I ever saw.
I have a great mind to court-martial you - no, I
believe I'll send for Dan and let him do it."

He called a courier, and wrote a despatch in
regular form, ordering Major Dan Grey to report
at once to General Stuart. Then he added a little
private note to Dan which had for a postscript:

"Sweet Nellie is by my side."

"That will bring him in a hurry!" laughed
Stuart.

The courier, not knowing but that the fate of
the Confederacy depended upon that despatch,
put spurs to his horse, galloped down the road
and out of sight. I suppose he ran his horse all
the way, and that Dan ran his all the way back,
for before General Stuart left the veranda Dan
galloped into the yard.

He leaped from the porch and ran across the
yard, I tearing after him. I caught up and passed
him, and looking back at him from Dan's arms,
into which I had stumbled, breathless and panting,
I laughed out: "I can beat the Yankees getting
out of your way!"

Perhaps this race and General Stuart's love
of teasing may seem undignified conduct for the
chief of the Southern cavalry, but it is history and
it is fun, and those who knew him did not fail in
respect to Stuart. Many of us loved the ground
he walked on. His boyish spirits and his genial,
sunny temperament helped to make him the idol
of the cavalry and the inspiration of his soldiers,
and kept heart in them no matter what happened.

That was a lovely evening. General Stuart
had Sweeny, his banjo-player, in. Sweeny was a
dignified, solemn-looking man, but couldn't he
play merry tunes on that banjo, and sad ones too!
making you laugh and cry with his playing and
his singing.

That was one of his mournful favorites. And
you heard the jingle of spurs in his rollicking:

"If you want a good time,
Jine the cavalry,
Bully boys, hey!"

We called for "Old Joe Hooker, won't you
Come Out of the Wilderness?" and "O Johnny
Booker, help this Nigger!" and "O Lord, Ladies,
don't you mind Stephen!" and "Sweet Evelina,"
and - oh! I can't remember them all, but if you
choose to read Esten Cooke, he will tell you all
about Sweeny's songs and banjo. Stuart sang "The
Dew is on the Blossom" and "The Bugles sang
Truce." He made Sweeny give, twice over,
"Sweet Nellie is by my Side," and sat himself
down beside me, and tried to tease Dan because
he sat at table with me every day and Dan
couldn't. In spite of everything I was very happy
in those old days at the Bradfords'! I was not
yet out of my teens, you know; so I hope I was
not very much to blame because I was always
ready for a romp across that lawn at Mr.
Bradford's with the commander-in-chief of

the Southern cavalry. His was the gentlest,
merriest, sweetest-tempered soul I ever knew.
He was always ready to sympathize with me, to
tease me, and to help me. Whenever he teased
me out of conceit with myself or him, he always
would put me in a good humor by saying nice
things about Dan, or sending a courier after him.

He had an idea that I was very plucky, and in
after days when I was ready to show the white
feather, Dan would shame me by asking, "What
would General Stuart say?"

Mr. Bradford and his wife, "Aunt Sally,"
were characters. Mr. Bradford was a very quiet,
peaceable man; Aunt Sally was strong-minded,
and had a tongue and mind of her own. Mr.
Bradford had a good deal of property and
stayed out of the army to take care of it. I think
Aunt Sally made him stay out of the war for this
reason, but she made home about as hot for him
as the field would have been. I can't think he
stayed at home to keep out of war, for he was in
war all the time. Aunt Sally continually twitted
him with staying at home, although she made him
do it. She was always sure to do this when

"The place for a man," she would say, "is
on the field. Just give me the chance to fight!
Just give me the chance to fight, and see where
I'll be!"

And General Stuart would convulse me by
whispering: "I don't think she needs a chance to
fight, do you?"

Sometimes when Aunt Sally's harangue
would begin the general would whisper, "Aunt
Sally's getting herself in battle array," or "The
batteries have limbered up," or "Aunt Sally's
scaled the breastworks," and Mr. Bradford's
meek and inoffensive face would make the
situation funnier. He would mildly help the
boarders to the dish in front of him and endeavor
feebly to turn the conversation into a peaceful
and safe direction, though this never had the
slightest effect upon his belligerent wife.

One day - it was about the time of Stuart's
historical grand review - Mr. Bradford invited all
the cavalry generals whose forces were
stationed around us to dine with the commander-
in-chief of the cavalry. He

would never have dared to do this if Aunt Sally
had been at home, but Aunt Sally at this
auspicious moment was in Washington, where
we all hoped the fortunes of war and shopping
would keep her indefinitely. Her niece, Miss
Morse, and I sat down, the only ladies present, at
a table with eighteen Confederate generals. Miss
Molly and I were at first a trifle embarrassed at
being the only ladies, but they were all refined
and well-bred, and soon put us at our ease.
General Wade Hampton led me in to dinner, and
I sat between him and General Ramseur.
General Ramseur was young and exceedingly
handsome, and a paralyzed arm which was
folded across his breast made him all the more
attractive.

"If you sit next me, Mrs. Grey," he said with
a little embarrassment, "you will have to cut up
my dinner for me. I am afraid that will be putting
you to a great deal of trouble. Perhaps I had
better change my seat."

"Oh, no!" I said, "I will be very glad - if I
can be satisfactory."

He smiled. "Thank you. I am always both
glad and sorry to impose upon a lady

good corn it was, dropped and hilled by Southern
negroes and growing on a large, fine plantation
next to Mr. Bradford's; and a very nice
gentleman Mr. Botts was, too; but a field of corn,
however good, and a private citizen, however
estimable, are scarcely matters of national or
international importance. The trouble was that
John Minor Botts was on the Northern side and
the corn was on the Southern side, and that
Stuart held a grand review on the Southern side
and the corn got trampled down. The fame of
that corn went abroad into all the land. Northern
and Southern papers vied with each other in
editorials and special articles, families who had
been friends for generations stopped speaking
and do not speak to this day because of it, more
than one hard blow was exchanged for and
against it, and it brought down vituperation upon
Stuart's head. And yet I was present at that
naughty grand review - which left sorrowful
memory on many hearts because of the battle
following fast upon it - and I can testify that
General Stuart went there to review the troops,
not to trample down the corn.

Afterward John Minor Botts came over to
see General Stuart and to quarrel about that
corn. All that I can remember of how the
general took Mr. Botts's visit and effort to
quarrel was that Stuart wouldn't quarrel
- whatever it was he said to Mr. Botts he got to
laughing when he said it. Our colored Abigail told
us with bated breath that "Mr. Botts ripped and
rarred and snorted, but Genrul Stuart warn't put
out none at all."

There had been many reviews that week,
all of them merely by way of preparation and
practice for that famous grand review before the
battle of Brandy or Fleetwood, but it is only of
this particular grand review I have many lively
memories. Aunt Sally was away, and we
attended it in state. Mr. Bradford had out the
ancient and honorable family carriage and two
shadowy horses, relics of days when corn was
in plenty and wheat not merely a dream of the
past, and we went in it to the review along with
many other carriages and horses, whose title to
respect lay, alas! solely in the past.

whole army was in Culpeper. Pennsylvania and
Gettysburg were before it, and the army was
making ready for invasion. On a knoll where a
Confederate flag was planted and surrounded by
his staff sat General Lee on horseback; before
him, with a rebel yell, dashed Stuart and his eight
thousand cavalry. There was a sham battle.
Charging and countercharging went on, rebels
yelled and artillery thundered. Every time the
cannons were fired we would pile out of our
carriage, and as soon as the cannonading ceased
we would pile back again. General Stuart
happened to ride up once just as we were getting
out.

"Why don't you ladies sit still and enjoy the
fun?" he asked in amazement.

"We are afraid the horses might take fright
and run away," we answered.

I shall never forget his ringing laugh. Our
lean and spiritless steeds had too little life in
them to run for anything - they hardly pricked
up their ears when the guns went off.

How well I remember Stuart as he looked
that day! He wore a fine new uniform, brilliant
with gold lace, buff gauntlets reaching

to his elbows, and a canary-colored silk sash with
tasseled ends. His hat, a soft, broad brimmed felt,
was caught up at the side with a gold star and
carried a sweeping plume; his high, patent-leather
cavalry boots were trimmed with gold.
He wore spurs of solid gold, the gift of some
Maryland ladies - he was very proud of those
spurs - and his horse was coal black and glossy
as silk. And how happy he was - how full of
faith in the Confederacy and himself!

My own cavalry officer was there,
resplendent in his new uniform - I had had it
made up for him in Richmond. Dan was very
proud of the way I got that uniform. He was
almost ready to credit himself with having put
me up to running the blockade! He told General
Stuart its history, and that is how a greatness not
always easy to sustain had been thrust upon me.
General Stuart thought me very brave - or said
he thought so. The maneuvers of Dan's
command were on such a distant part of the field
that I could not see him well with the naked eye,
and General Stuart lent me his field-glasses The
next morning, just as gray dawn was

breaking, some one called under my window, and
gravel rattled against the pane. I got up and
looked out sleepily. My first thought was that it
might be Dan. There was not enough light for me
to see very well what was happening on the
lawn, but I could make out that the cavalry were
mounted and moving, and under my window I
saw a figure on horseback.

"Is that Mrs. Grey?"

"Yes. What is the matter?"

"General Stuart sent me for his field-glasses.
I am sorry to disturb you, but it couldn't be
helped."

CHAPTER XX

"WHOSE BUSINESS TIS TO DIE"

IN forty-eight hours we knew that the
surmise of the orderly was correct - there was
enough fighting. The first cannon-ball which tore
through the air at Brandy was only too grave
assurance of the fact. All day men were
hurrying past the house, deserters from both
armies getting away from the scene of bloodshed
and thunder as quickly as possible. Then came
the procession of the dead and wounded, some in
ambulances, some in carts, some on the
shoulders of friends.

In the afternoon we began to hear rumors
giving names of the killed and wounded. I
listened with my heart in my throat for Dan's
name, but I did not hear it. I heard no news
whatever of him all day - all day I could only
hope that no news was good news, and all day
that ghastly procession dragged heavily by.
Among names of the killed I heard that of

Colonel Sol Williams. A day or two before the
battle of Brandy he had returned from a furlough
to Petersburg, where he had gone to marry a
lovely woman, a friend of mine. The day before
he was killed he had sat at table with me, chatting
pleasantly of mutual friends at home from whom
he had brought messages, brimful of happiness,
and of the charming wife he had won! As the
day waned I sat in my room, wretched and
miserable, thinking of my friend who was at once
a bride and a widow, and fearing for myself,
whose husband even at that moment might be
falling under his death wound. I was aroused by
hearing the voices of men, subdued but excited,
on the stairway leading to my room. I ran out and
saw several men of rank and Mr. Bradford on
the stairway talking excitedly, and I heard my
name spoken.

"What's the matter, gentlemen?" I asked
with forced calmness.

They looked up at me in a stupid, masculine
sort of way, as if they had something
disagreeable to say and didn't want to say it. I
could shake those men now, when I think of
how stupid they were! They were listening

to Mr. Bradford, and I don't think they really
caught my question, nor did my manner betray to
them how fast my heart was beating, but they
were stupid, nevertheless. I could hardly get the
next words out:

"Neither, madam!" several voices answered
instantly, and the officer nearest me, thinking I
was going to fall, sprang quickly to my side. I
gathered myself together, and they told me their
business, and I saw why my presence had
embarrassed them - they wanted my room for
the wounded. A funny thing had happened,
incongruous as it was, in their telling me that my
fears for Dan were groundless. When I asked,
"Is Dan hurt?" one of them had answered, "No,
ma'am; it's General Rooney Lee;" and I had
said, "Thank God!" I can't describe the look of
horror with which they heard me.

Mr. Bradford, who was always afraid to speak
his mind, "wanted to bring General Lee here,
and I didn't have a place to put him, and I was
telling 'em that I thought that - maybe - you would
give him your room. I could fix up a lounge for you
somewhere."

"Of course I will! I shall be delighted to give
up my room, or do anything else I can for
General Lee."

I busied myself getting my room ready for
General "Rooney," but he was not brought to
Mr. Bradford's, after all; his men were afraid
that he might be captured too easily at Mr.
Bradford's. As night came on the yard filled up
with soldiers. In the lawn, the road, the
backyard, the porches, the outhouses,
everywhere, there were soldiers. You could not
set your foot down without putting it on a soldier;
if you thrust your hand out of a window you
touched a soldier's back or shoulder, his carbine
or his musket. The place was crowded not only
with cavalry, but with infantry and artillery, and
still they kept on coming. I had not heard from
Dan. It was late supper-time. I had no heart for
supper, and I felt almost too shaken to present

dust and ashes and gunpowder, and he looked
haggard and jaded. He sat down between
General Stuart and me, too tired to talk; but after
eating some supper, he felt better, and began
discussing the battle and relating some incidents.
He took a card out of his pocket and handed it to
General Stuart.

"A Federal officer who is about done for,
poor fellow, handed me that just now. I don't
know the name. He couldn't talk."

"I do!" General Stuart exclaimed, with quick,
strong interest. "Where did you see him? This is
the name of one of my classmates at West
Point."

"I saw him on the roadside as I came on to
supper. While riding along I heard a strange
sound, something like a groan, yet different from
any groan I ever heard - the strangest, most
uncanny sound imaginable. I dismounted and
began to look around for it, and I found a
Yankee soldier lying in a ditch by the roadside. I
couldn't see that any legs or arms were broken,
nor that he was wounded at all. I felt him all
over, and asked what was the matter. He didn't
speak,

and I saw that he had been trying to direct my
attention to his face. He tried very hard to speak,
but only succeeded in emitting the strange sound
I had heard before; and on examining his face
closely, and moving the whiskers aside, I found
that he was shot through both jaws. He made
the same noise again, put his hand in his pocket,
and gave me this card, with another pitiful effort
to speak. I put my coat under his head, laid some
brush across the ditch to hide him, and promised
to go back for him in an ambulance."

"Thank you, in my own behalf!" General
Stuart said warmly.

"Perhaps, poor fellow," said Dan, "he took
chances on that card's reaching you. Seeing my
uniform of major of cavalry, he may not have
considered it impossible that you should hear of
his condition through me."

"When you have finished your supper,
major, we will go after him."

Tired as they both were, they went out and
attended personally to the relief of the poor
fellow by the roadside. General Stuart

had everything done for him that was possible,
smoothed his last moments, and grieved over
him as deeply as if his classmate had not been
his enemy.

Another sad thing among the sorrows of that
supper was when Colonel Sol Williams's
brother-in-law, John Pegram, came in, and sat
down in our midst. General Stuart went up to him,
and wrung his hand in a silence that even the
dauntless Stuart's lips were too tremulous at
once to break. When he could speak he said:

"I grieve for myself as for you, lieutenant,
but it was a death that any one of us might be
proud to die."

Even then the shadow and glory of his own
death was not far from him.

Colonel Williams had been Lieutenant
Pegram's superior officer as well as
brother-in-law. It had been his sorrowful lot to
take the body of his colonel on his horse in
front of him, and carry it to a house where it
could be reverently cared for until he could send
it home to bride and kindred. He had cut a lock
of hair from the dead, and when the troops went
off to Pennsylvania, he gave it

to me for his sister. I shall never forget that
supper hour, or how the unhappy young fellow
looked when he came in among us after his ride
with the dead, and I shall never forget how I felt
about that poor young Federal soldier who was
wounded in the jaws and couldn't speak, and
how I felt about the women who loved him far
away; I began to feel that war was an utterly
unjustifiable thing, and that the virtues of valor, loyalty,
devotion which it brings out had better be
brought out some other way. If General Rooney
Lee didn't take my room, I gave it up all the
same. Two wounded men were put into it.
There were a number of wounded men in the
house, and, of course, everybody gave way to
their comfort. All but my two were removed in a
day or two, but here these two were, and here
they were when Aunt Sally came home. Her
home coming was after a fashion that turned our
mourning into righteous and wholesome wrath.
We were sitting on the porch one afternoon, free
and easy in our minds and believing Aunt Sally
away in distant Washington, when we noted a
small object far off

She climbed off the cart at the gate, and
called for some negro to come get her trunk.
Mr. Bradford had already found one, and was
running to the rescue. In fact he had been
running in a half dozen different directions ever
since he had spied Aunt Sally. He looked as if
his wits had left him and as if he were racing
around in a circle.

"You orter been on hand to he'p me off 'o that
kyart," she told him. "It do look like when a
man's wife's been away this long time he might
be on hand to he'p her off the kyart."

As she came up the walk she said the yard
looked awful torn and "trompled down"; that
she was afraid she would find it so soon as she
heard that the place had been camping ground
for the whole army and her

away and nobody there to manage the army as
she could have done. She greeted me and her
niece, and in the same breath told her niece that
there was some mud on the steps which ought
to be washed off. Then she went into the house,
taking off her things and remarking on "things
that ought to be done." Presently there was a
great stir in the house; she had found out the
wounded men. She commented on their
presence in such a loud voice that we heard it
on the porch, and the men themselves must have
heard it.

"Just like Mr. Bradford! If I had been here
it wouldn't have happened. The idea! Turning
the house into a hospital! I won't have it!
Nobody knows who they are. I can't have 'em
on my best beds, and between my best sheets
and blankets. Dirty, common soldiers! I never
heard of such a thing!"

And she got them out before supper.

There was an office in the yard and she had
them taken to this. They had to be carried past
us, and I can see them now, poor, mortified,
shame-faced fellows! I was as afraid

of Aunt Sally as of a rattlesnake, but I think I
could have shaken her then!

Little it was that I saw of Dan or any of my
army friends after the battle of Brandy. The
cavalry was too busy watching Hooker's, while
our infantry was pushing on toward
Pennsylvania, to spare any time to lighter
matters. Every day the boys in gray marched by
on their way North.

I watched from the porch and windows if by
any means I might catch sight of Dan. But his
way did not lie by Bradford's. One morning,
however, I saw General Stuart riding by at the
head of a large command. I thought they were
going to stop and camp at Mr. Bradford's,
perhaps, but I was mistaken. As soon as I saw
that they were going by without stopping, I ran to
the fence and beckoned to General Stuart. He
had seen me on the porch, and rode up to the
fence at once.

"Am I not to see him at all, General Stuart?"
I said, trying hard to keep my lip from
quivering - I had a reputation to keep up with
him.

But he saw the quiver.

"You can go on with the army if you want
to," he said in quick sympathy. "I will give you
an ambulance. You can carry your own maid
along, have your own tent, and have your
husband with you. I will do anything I can for
your comfort. You would nurse our poor fellows
when they get hurt, and be no end of good to us.
But it would be awfully hard on you."

"I wouldn't mind the hardships," I answered,
"but you know Dan won't let me go. I have
begged him several times to let me live in camp
with him. I could nurse the sick and wounded,
and take care of him if he was shot, and I
wouldn't be a bit of trouble; and I could patch
for the soldiers. Oh, I'd love to do it! If you come
up with him, General Stuart, ask him to let

"I'll promise him what I promised you," he
said, smiling kindly. "Good-by now. I'll ride on
and send him back to say good-by to you, if I can
manage it. Then you can talk him into letting you
come with us."

I climbed up on the fence to shake hands
with him and to say good-by, and I had another
word for him. Beneath my dress and next my
skin was a little Catholic medal which had been
blessed by my confessor. It hung around my
neck by a slender chain. I unclasped the chain,
drew forth the medal and gave it to him, my eyes
brimming with tears.

"It has been blessed by Father Mulvey," I
said. "Wear it about your neck. Maybe it will
bring you back safe."

I was leaning upon the horse's neck, crying
as if my heart would break. General Stuart's
own eyes were dim.

"Good-by," I said, "and if you can send Dan
back I thank you for us both - I thank you
anyway for thinking of it; but - the

That was the last time I ever saw him, the
last time that knightly hand clasped mine. Before
he rode away he said some cheerful, hopeful
words, and looked back at me with the glint of
merry mischief in his eyes, threatening to tell
Dan Grey that I was losing my good repute for
bravery. Dan did not come back to say good-by.
I had a little note which he contrived to send me
in some way. It was only a hasty scrawl, full of
good-bys and God bless yous.

After saying good-by to General Stuart I
returned to the house. Esten Cooke sat at a
table writing. He was preparing some official
papers for General Stuart, I think, and had been
left behind for that purpose. I understood him
to answer one of my question to the effect that
he was going to follow the cavalry presently.

"Colonel Cooke," I asked humbly enough,
for I was ready then to take information and
advice from anybody, "how long do you think it
will be before the army comes back?"

I felt like shaking him and asking: "What can
you say?" He may have been a brave soldier
and written nice books and all that, but I think
John Esten Cooke was a very dull, disagreeable
man.

I waited several days, but as I got nothing
further from Dan than the little note - which was
bare of advice because, perhaps, he didn't have
time to write more, and because he may not
have known how to advise me - I took John
Esten Cooke's advice and went to Richmond. I
stopped there only a very short time, and then
went on to Petersburg, where mother was.
Reunion with her was compensation for many
troubles, and then, too, she needed me. She had
not heard from Milicent since

my departure for Culpeper. Then a letter had
reached us through the agency of Mr. Cridland,
in which Milicent had stated her purpose of
coming to us as soon as she could get a pass - a
thing it was every day becoming more difficult
to secure - for she was determined upon
reaching us before the cold weather came again.
Since that letter there had been absolute silence.

Then came upon us that awful July of 1863,
and the battle of Gettysburg, the beginning of the
end. Virginians fell by hundreds in that fight, and
Pickett's charge goes down to history along with
Balaklava and Thermopylae. There were more
vacant chairs in Virginia, already
desolate - there were more broken hearts for
which Heaven alone held balm. "When Italy's
made, for what good is it done if we have not a
son?" Again the angel of death had passed me
by. But my heart bled for my friends who were
dead on that red field far away - for my friends
who mourned and could not be comforted.

One of our wounded, whose father brought
him home to be nursed, bore to me

a letter from my husband and a package from
General Stuart. The package contained a
photograph of himself that he had promised me,
and a note, bright, genial, merry, like himself.
That picture is hanging on my wall now. On the
back is written by a hand long crumbled into
dust, "To her who in being a devoted wife did
not forget to be a true patriot." The eyes smile
down upon us as I lift my little granddaughter up
to kiss my gallant cavalier's lips, and as she lisps
his name my heart leaps to the memory of his
dauntless life and death.

He was shot one beautiful May morning in
1864 while trying to prevent Sheridan's
approach to Richmond. It was at Yellow
Tavern - a dismantled old tavern not many miles
from the Confederate capital - that he fell, and
Colonel Venable, who was serving with him at
the time and near him when he fell, helped, if I
remember aright, to shroud him. When he told
me what he could of General Stuart's last hours,
he said:

"There was a little Catholic medal around
his neck, Nell. Did you give him that? We left
it on him."

And so passes from this poor history my
beloved and loyal friend, my cavalry hero and
good comrade. Virginia holds his dust sacred,
and in history he sits at the Round Table of all
true-souled and gentle knights.

CHAPTER XXI

RESCUED BY THE FOE

Milicent's arrest in Washington as related by
herself.

I PASSED May and a part of the summer of
1863 in fruitless efforts to get a pass to Virginia.
This was when the Civil War was at its whitest heat,
and I was in the city of Baltimore, where a word
was construed into treason, and messages and
letters were contrived to and from the South only
by means of strategy. One by one my plans
failed. Then came the battle of Gettysburg, and
as I heard of our reverses I felt an almost
helpless lethargy stealing over me - as if I should
ever see Nell or mother again. How long the
war would last, and what would be the end of it
none could tell. Nell and mother were in a
besieged country, and the blockade between us
seemed an impassable wall. The long silence
was becoming unbearable as I slowly realized
that it might become the silence of death and I
not know.

At last came news which I thought affected
them, and which startled me into instant energy.

One morning my friend, Miss Barnett, a
beautiful girl, rushed into my room, and, throwing
herself on the floor beside me, began telling me with
sobs and tears that my brother-in-law, Major Grey,
or his brother Dick, was a prisoner in the Old
Capitol at Washington. She begged me to go at once
and see what I could do. If I could not find some
way of helping the prisoner to freedom, I could at
least add to his comfort in prison.

"You could at least show him that he was
remembered," she said. "You could take some
little delicacies which would be grateful to a
prisoner. I will help you to get them up."

Poor Isabelle! It was one of the tragedies of
the war. She was too wretched to attempt any
concealment.

"You see, if I had any right to go myself I
would not ask you to go for me. If I were even
engaged to him - but I am not. You see, it
couldn't be. But, O Millie! I

wish there wasn't any war that I might be my
love's betrothed and go to him!"

For a minute her proposition daunted me. To
rush into Washington, a Southern woman, alone
and unprotected; to be surrounded on all sides by
the Government officials and spies whose
business it was to watch and report every
careless word and act of any one who was
known to be interested in the South or in
Southerners - the undertaking seemed
desperate. But there were Isabelle's tearful
eyes, and there was the fear that Nell's husband
might be the prisoner. I determined to make the
trip at all hazards.

Together we made purchases of what we
considered the most tempting delicacies to take
to an invalid or prisoner. There were cheeses,
crackers, oranges, lemons, jellies; and we did
not forget to add to our stock wine, whisky,
pipes, and tobacco. Isabelle herself sent a box
of fine cigars, a costly gift, for the war with the
Southern States affected the price of tobacco.

The next morning I started off by myself to
Washington in fear and trembling. Taking a
hack there, and trusting to a kind

Providence for guidance and protection drove
first to the office of the provost marshal for a
permit. On entering his office, to my
consternation I recognized in him the
judge-advocate under whose protection, our
truce boat had gone to Richmond not many
months before with the distinct understanding
that her passengers were not to return
from Dixie while the war lasted. But it was
too late to retreat. Rallying all my courage
and self-control I greeted him as a stranger,
asking whether or not I was addressing Judge
Turner. Answered in the affirmative, I
requested permission to visit the prisoners in
the Old Capitol.

While I was talking he looked up and a
glance almost of recognition lighted his face. It
was succeeded by a more scrutinizing regard
as I stood in perfectly assumed unconsciousness
before him. Bowing, he asked me to
be seated, and to repeat my petition. Others
were waiting their turn, and his answer was
prompt:

"Certainly, madam. You can see two
prisoners mentioned, or any one you wish, and
take with you what you please."

"Then I can not help you. I am sorry, You
must apply at military headquarters."

He kindly directed me to the same. I hurried
down the steps, jumped into my hack, and
drove quickly to the War Department. Here I
made my request again and again met with the
same polite consent backed with the oath.
Again I refused and turned to go, when one of
the officers kindly suggested:

"Make application to the officer at the Old
Capitol. He may permit you to see the
prisoners without oath, though I fear not."

As there was not much time left before my
train would start for Baltimore, I urged my
driver to do his best, and we sped on in haste
until we stopped before the gloomy,
formidable-looking prison of the Old Capitol.
With the permission of the guard I entered.
The officer in command received me with
kindness and courtesy, and with his consent
I was about to ascend the stairs when he
extended his hand, saying:

"The oath, if you please. I presume you
took it at the War Department, and have your
pass."

chance. There was no use pleading, and I was in
despair. I leaned on a chair to rest a moment
before leaving the room, defeated. I had not a
word to say, and I did not say a word. I suppose
my deep dejection touched him. I was about to
go when he said with great kindness:

"Wait here near these steps. I will send up
an order, and if he is there, he can come to the
railing and you can speak to him, and send him
anything you wish. But you can not go up."

An orderly ascended with the message, and I
waited at the steps, watching anxiously for Dan
or Dick to appear at the railing. I did not have
many minutes to wait. The orderly returned with
the reply that Lieutenant - not Major - Grey
had been exchanged that very morning, and was
now on his way home. Happy for Nell and
Isabelle and myself, I poured out my thanks to
the officer in command for helping me to such
good news, and asked his permission to send the
large basket of good things I had brought to the
other prisoners. He gave it, and I saw the
orderly again mount the stairs, burdened

this time with good wishes and my still more
substantial and acceptable offering. As I
went out, passing again through the prison gates,
my driver whispered in the most excited manner:

"Lady! lady! do take care! The prisoners
are all at the windows, and if you look up or speak
to them we will both be arrested instantly."

I seated myself quickly, and then, in spite of
all fears and warnings, glanced up, to see the
windows filled with faces, and hands and
handkerchiefs waving to me inside the bars. As
we dashed forward, I leaned out of the window
waving my handkerchief in vigorous response. In
the excitement, the enthusiasm of the moment, I
lost all sense of fear or danger - my whole heart
was with those desolate, homesick Confederates
behind the bars. Fortunately the driver was frightened
out of his wits and drove like mad, or we should never
have gotten to the train in time.

I had been fortunate enough to find in my
driver a strong, if secret, sympathizer with the
South. As I bade him good-by, and thanked him
for the care and promptness

with which he had carried me about, and for his
unheeded warning as well, he said:

"Oh, lady, lady, you ran a great risk when
you waved that handkerchief! I saw it and drove
as fast as I could to get you away from there. It
is a wonder we were not arrested."

I stepped on the car, and was taking my seat,
when a hand lightly touched my shoulder from
behind, and I heard myself arrested by a name
that was not mine. Behind me stood a sergeant
in the United States uniform, who informed me
that I was his prisoner.

I tried to shrink away from him.

"That is not my name," I said.

Still he kept that light grip on my shoulder. I
felt sick. The day had been a long one of
exercise and excitement. I had eaten nothing
since my early breakfast of a cracker and a cup
of coffee, and I was physically weak. The terror
of the situation, the full foolhardiness of my
undertaking flashed upon me. Alone in
Washington, not a friend near, and under arrest!
For an instant everything whirled around me,
and I fell back against

the breast of the sergeant; but as instantly I
pulled myself together and stood erect.

"You are mistaken," I said quietly, "I am
not the person you have mentioned."

And I threw back my heavy mourning veil
and looked my captor full in the face.

"Ain't you? It's widow's weeds this time!"

These words were spoken sarcastically by a
man in civilian dress who was with the
sergeant - a detective, I suppose.

"I am Mrs. Milicent Duncan Norman, of
Baltimore," I said firmly. "You can telegraph to
No. - Charles Street and see. You will please
remove your hand," I continued. "If necessary I
will go with you, but I am not the person you
wish to arrest. You are making a mistake."

I turned my face full to the light, and stood,
calm and composed, though my knees were
trembling under me, and I felt as if I should
faint. I saw Bobby at home waiting for me!

"I must stay over if you insist," I repeated,
"but I hope you will permit me to convince you of
your mistake. It would be

extremely inconvenient to me to be detained here.
I left Baltimore this morning, and my little boy
has been without me all day. He will cry himself
sick if I don't get home tonight."

In spite of all I could do my lips quivered.

"I am sorry, madam," said my sergeant,
more respectfully than he had hitherto spoken,
"but you will have to come with me. If it is as
you say, you can telegraph and satisfy the
authorities very quickly."

My arrest had attracted some attention. I
saw that people in the car were gathering
around me, and I saw curiosity in some faces,
sympathy in some, but among all those faces
none that I knew. This was my first visit to
Washington, and there was not a soul to identify
me. There was nothing to do but to go and
telegraph - if they would let me. I would have to
miss my train. Bobby was watching from the
window for me this very minute - Bobby would
cry all night. I told the sergeant that I would go,
and tried to follow him, and then everything
grew dark around me, my head whirled, and I
dropped across the seat nearest me.

I could not have been unconscious more
than a second. The kind gentleman over
whose seat I had fallen had caught me, and was
slapping my face with a wet handkerchief, and
assuring the sergeant that he knew by my face
that I was perfectly harmless and ought not to
be arrested, that he would bet anything on it,
when a new passenger hurriedly entered the car
and brushed squarely up against us.

The sergeant was saying: "We must hurry,"
and offering me his arm very courteously. "You
will feel better when you get out in the air. And
you will perhaps come out all right, and be able
to go on to-morrow."

The newcomer looked over the sergeant's
shoulder and saw me.

"Milicent!" he said, and clasped my hands.

It was a dear friend whom I had know in
my girlhood days as Captain Warren.

"What is all this?" he asked quickly of the
sergeant.

The sergeant was staggered, the little man
in civilian's clothes cringed, the old man

"We must get out of this, commodore," said
the sergeant quickly, "the car is moving."

The commodore got out with us, lifted me
bodily off the train, and then, as we stood
together, while the sergeant explained, supported
me with his arm. I was too weak and ill to hear
their talk. I think I was very nearly in a faint
while I stood, or tried to stand upright beside
him.

He told me afterward that I had been
arrested by mistake for some famous political
spy in petticoats. He answered for me, made
himself responsible in every way, lifted me into a
carriage, and told the driver where to take us. I
was too nearly dead to listen to what he said. As
the carriage whirled along I tried to sit up, to lift
my head, but every time I attempted it I grew
blind and sick.

"I would not try to sit up just yet, Mrs.
Norman," he said very kindly. "In a few
minutes, perhaps, you can do so without risk,
but I'd be very quiet now. In a little while

"My little boy is looking out of the window
for me, waiting for me; he has been by himself
all day," I sobbed.

"Ah! I am so sorry you have had this
annoyance and detention. I wish I had boarded
the car earlier; you should have gone on if I
had. I was outside talking with some friends,
and I did not jump on the train until she was
about to move off, but I can telegraph to your
friends, and you can go on tomorrow."

The ride in the open air had revived me, and
I found now that I could sit up without fainting.

"You were going to Baltimore to-night," I
said. "I am putting you to so much trouble."

"None at all. And if you were" - with a
tremor in his voice - "I should be glad of it. Can
you sit up? Ah! I am so glad you are better.
When I first took you into this carriage I was
afraid I would have to stop with you at the first
doctor's office. We are nearly home now."

"You are very good," I said, still too weak
not to speak with tears in my voice.

"I am fortunate - but too much at your
expense, I am afraid. You forget how large my
debt is. I shall never forget the old days in
Norfolk and the kindness that was shown me by
you and yours. I owe you a great deal, Mrs.
Norman, as yourself and as your father's
daughter. I shall never forget his charming
hospitality. I am sorry you can't go on to
Baltimore, but I am glad of my opportunity."

"That is a nice way to put it, commodore."

"A true way to put it, Mrs. Norman. Please
don't be too sorry. Where is Nell? - Mrs. Grey,
I suppose I should say. I can't think of the saucy
little fairy who used to sit on my knee as a
madam."

"I don't know just where Nell is, or how.
The fortunes of war have separated me from
her, and mother as well."

"And her saucy sweet ways - wilful and
almost bad - if he were not so sweet and true
But I tire you. Mothers who talk about their
babies bore people. I make many good resolves
not to talk Bobby, and, break every one."

"You could never tire me. I am charmed to
hear about your boy. Maybe you can find him a
little sweetheart in my house. Here we are."

He lifted me out of the carriage and led me
into the house.

"This is an old friend of mine, dear," he said
to his wife. "She is sick and in trouble and I
have brought her to you. Her father's home used
to be my home in Norfolk. Mrs. Norman is Miss
Duncan that was."

She had heard of me. He began to explain
how he had met me, but she interrupted.

"I will come back and hear," she said, "when
I have made Mrs. Norman comfortable.
She looks worn-out. I must take her

to her room and see what I can do to make her
more at ease." While she was talking she had
me in a chair, holding my hand, and giving me a
glass of wine.

Commodore Warren took my Baltimore
address, and went out saying he would send the
telegrams at once - a special one to Bobby all
by himself.

Then Mrs. Warren saw me to my room. As
we passed through hallways and up the stairs,
our feet sank into soft, thick carpets that gave
back no sound. Through an open doorway I
caught a glimpse of her own exquisite chamber
and of a cozy nursery where children's gowns
were laid out for the night. Everywhere around
me were evidences of wealth, luxury, and
refinement.

After a little rest I felt better.

As I went down to dinner I heard the street
door open, and Commodore Warren's voice in
the hall.

Then children's voices:

"Papa! papa!"

He was taking his children in his arms and
kissing them, and I heard the glad murmur of
his wife's welcome.

Together they took me in to their table, and
showered upon me courtesies and loving
kindness. Such a delightful dining-room it
was - such lovely appointments and such
perfect serving! and such charming hosts they
made! The children are beautiful and well
trained. They were brought into the parlor after
dinner, and made great friends with me. You
know children always like me, Nell. This trio
took possession of me. They hovered around
me, leaned against me, climbed into my lap, and
the youngest went to sleep in my arms, her soft
golden head nestled under my chin. We decided
that she is to be Bobby's sweetheart. Their
parents were afraid that I was not strong
enough for such demonstrations, but I begged
that they would not interrupt the little people,
whose caresses really did me a world of good.
But the commodore called the nurse when the
baby dropped to sleep, and she took it to the
nursery, the other children following her. By this
time I was quite myself. A telegram had come
from Isabelle, saying she was with Bobby and
that Bobby was comforted.

that we should go to the opera. It was rather
late to start, but the carriage would take us in a
few minutes, and we should not miss more than
the first act. A great singer was to be heard, and
the commodore remembered that I was fond of
music. When I objected on the score that I was
not in opera dress and that my wardrobe was in
Baltimore, they explained that they kept a
private box, and that I could hear without being
distinctly visible - if I was not too fatigued to
think of going.

"Oh, no!" I said. "You know I love opera,
and, thanks to you both, I am entirely rested and
comfortable about Bobby."

Mrs. Warren ran up-stairs to dress while the
carriage was being made ready. As for me,
there was nothing to do but to put on my bonnet
and cloak, so I sat still, and Commodore Warren
drew up a chair in front of the sofa where I sat.

"This is like old times," he said.

I tried to keep them back, but somehow I
felt the tears starting to my eyes.

He got up and walked to the other end of
the room, and brought a book of drawings of

queer places and people he had seen in his
journeys around the world. While he was
showing them to me he remarked:

"I've a box somewhere of curious toys
picked up in various parts of the world at
different times, and I think Master Bobby would
be interested in them. We'll get Mrs. Warren to
look it up, and I'll ask you to be kind enough to
take it to him with my compliments. It may - in
a measure - recompense him for his mother's
absence to-night "

"Bobby will be delighted - if he is not
robbing your children."

"My children," he laughed, "have a surfeit
of toys from the four corners of the earth. They
have almost lost appreciation of such hinge. By
the way, has Nell" - he caught himself with a
laugh - "Mrs. Grey, I should say, any little ones
of her own?"

"Bobby is the only baby in the family; but he
is enough to go around."

"I remember with profound gratitude the
many expressions I used to receive of Nell's
regard in those old days, and seeing on brings
them back. Oh, forgive me - I know there have
been many changes."

"Don't apologize," I said, smiling; "I am
always glad to have old days and old friends
recalled. Usually it does not shake me even to
talk about father - it's a pleasure to think people
remember him. In the first part of this evening I
had not quite recovered from my arrest. But
Richard is himself again now. I haven't forgotten
how to be happy, and I'm going to enjoy this
opera." And I did enjoy it.

Mrs. Warren took me to my train in her
carriage; and there he met us to say good-by to
me, and to tell me that he would see that I had a
pass to Norfolk in a day or two. They both saw
me comfortably seated, and after farewells were
said and he had seen his wife to her carriage he
stepped back on the cars with a handful of
flowers for me.

"Is there nothing," he asked, "nothing that I
can do for you? If you are ever in any trouble
when I can help you, won't you let me know?"

I bowed my head.

"And Bobby - if there is ever anything I can
do for your child, you will let me know?

"Good-by," he said, "it is good to meet old
friends and find that neither time nor war
changes them. Good-by - we shall see you
again some day."

Isabelle was very happy when I told her that
Dick was safe, and now that it was over she
regretted having sent me into such dangers
and tribulations.

"I ought to have gone," she said. "I could
have taken the oath, you see, if they had asked
me. And then, well, papa is known there, but - I
couldn't ask papa to help Dick. He wouldn't
have done anything for him."

CHAPTER XXII

WITH DAN AT CHARLOTTESVILLE

MILICENT always came as a soul comes.

The day after we got the batch of letters the door
opened softly, and there she stood, holding
Bobby by the hand. She had come so quietly that
we did not know it until she stood in our midst.
But Bobby was a veritable piece of flesh and
blood. As soon as he saw it was grandma and
auntie, he made a bound for us, and
overwhelmed us with his noisy and affectionate
greetings, while his mother submitted to being
loved and kissed, and in her quiet way loved and
kissed back again. Then she told us how she had
come from Norfolk to Petersburg. It was a long,
dreary trip.

"I went on a flag-of-truce train to Suffolk.
Dr. Wright's family were on the train, and I
spent the night with them. Bobby burned his
throat at supper by swallowing

tea too hot for him, and he did not rest well in
the early part of the night and slept late the next
day, and I was very anxious about him. This,
and the difficulty in getting a conveyance, kept
me at Dr. Wright's until the afternoon. By that
time I had secured a mule-cart to take me to
Ivor Station, on the Norfolk and Petersburg
Railroad. Ivor, you know, is not more than
twenty-five miles from Suffolk by the direct
route, but the route we had to take for safety, as
far as the Yankees and mud were concerned,
was longer, and our one mule went slowly.

"The first afternoon we traveled till late in the
night. Bobby would insist on driving the mule,
and the driver humored him. In spite of the pain
in his throat, he stood up against my knee and
held the lines until, poor little tired fellow! he
went to sleep holding them. I drew him on to my
lap, covered him up, and we went on, the old
negro, old mule, and baby all asleep. At last we
stopped at a farmhouse to feed the mule. The
woman who lived there asked me in. I laid
Bobby down on her bed, dropped across it, and
in five minutes was asleep myself. I don't know
how

many other people slept in that bed that night, but
I know that the old woman, Bobby, and I slept in
it. When I woke up it was several hours after
daylight. Our breakfast the next morning was a
typical Confederate, breakfast. My hostess gave
me a drink made of parched wheat and corn
which had been ground, a glass of milk, and some
corn bread and bacon, and I enjoyed the meal and
paid her cheerfully.

"We reached Ivor late that afternoon, my
driver got his fee and departed, and Bobby and I
were left to wait for the train. But we were not
the only persons at the station; two other women
were waiting at Ivor. If those two women could
have had their way there would never have been
another sunset on this earth. Their two sons
were to be shot at sundown - they were
watching for the sun to go down. Up and down,
up and down, they walked in front of a tent
where their sons under military guard awaited
execution, and as they walked their eyes, swift
and haggard, shifted from tent to sky and back
again from sky to tent. As my train moved out of
the station I glanced back.

They were walking with feverish haste, and the
sun hung low in the heavens."

"Hush, hush!" I cried, "I can't stand
another word - I shall dream of those women all
night. Tell me how you got here at
last!"

"When I reached Pocahontas I meant to go
to Jarrett's, and stop until I could find out where
you were, but while I was looking around for a
carriage who should I come upon but John, our
old hackman. He told me that you were both
out here at Uncle William's, and I made him
drive me out."

Soon after my sister's arrival we moved into
town and boarded at Miss Anne Walker's, an old
historic house then facing Washington Street,
which runs east and west, paralleling the
railroad at Jarrett's Hotel - or rather where
Jarrett's used to stand - an ugly old hotel in the
heart of the town. It was beside this railroad
that I ran bareheaded along Washington Street
some months later to get out of the way of the
Yankee cannon. I was at Miss Anne's when
Dan gave me leave to visit him at
Charlottesville. His headquarters was a small
cottage in sight of the

university and of my window. He came to me
every night - home was a student's room in the
university - and very often I went with him in
the morning to his cottage.

One morning as I sat in the cottage, turning a
pair of Dan's old trousers, the door opened, and
a fine-looking cavalry officer entered. Surprised
to find a lady in occupation, he lifted his hat and
started to withdraw. Then he hesitated,
regarding me in a confused, doubtful fashion.
Whereupon I in my turn began to stare at him.

"Isn't this John - John Mason?" I asked
suddenly.

"That is my name," with a sweeping bow.
"And are you not my old friend, Miss Nellie
Duncan, of Norfolk?"

"Yes," I answered smiling, "but you know I
have a third name now."

"Of course. Unpleasant facts are always
hard to remember. I heard of your marriage,
certainly, but for the moment the remembrance
of it escaped me. You are here with the major?"

The last time I had seen John was on that
day which closed the chapter of my happy

girlhood in Norfolk. He had been with me when
the telegram came telling us that father could
not live, and from that day to this I had never seen
him until he surprised me patching Dan's old
trousers in the cottage at Charlottesville.

He took the chair opposite, and began
talking about the work I was doing and the
evidence it bore to my being a good wife. But so
far from being pleased I was very much
mortified, for the old trousers were in a dreadful
state of wear and tear, and he was resplendent
in a new uniform. But after a while we dropped
the trousers, and got on the subject of Norfolk
and old times, and had quite a pleasant chat till
my husband came in and he and John turned
their attention to business.

I was seeing more of my husband than at
any previous or later period of the war, and
having altogether a delightful time. One of the
things I enjoyed most were our horseback rides.

Dan had two horses for his own use
Tom Hodges, his old army horse, and Nellie
Grey, a fine new mare that he had christened

for me. When his horse was shot under him in
that charge which has been mentioned before,
the people of his native town had sent him Nellie
Grey in its stead. Nellie was a beautiful
creature, docile but very spirited, and I was not
often trusted to ride her unless Dan himself was
along. Tom Hodges was not so handsome, but
he was a horse of decorous ideas and steadfast
principles.

I remember well my first ride on Nellie Grey.
I had the reputation of being an excellent
horsewoman, and Dan wanted to show me off.
He was inordinately proud of me, to my great
delight, but I could have dispensed with the form
his vanity took on that day.

As we rode in an easy canter down
University Avenue he gave Nellie Grey a cut,
without my knowledge, that sent her off like the
wind in a regular cavalry gallop.

Well, I kept my seat - somehow - and I
brought her to her senses and a standstill, and
then I looked back to see Dan beaming with
pride and pleasure.

"I knew just what she would do," he
said, "and I knew what you'd do. I wanted
to show the boys over there what pluck my
wife's got."

"Dan," I said solemnly, "it's not Nellie
Grey that's the fool."

I was breathless and vexed, and I had to
use the strongest language at my command
to express my opinion of Nellie Grey, but
it wasn't strong enough to express my feelings
toward Dan! I simply had to look my
thoughts!

"You see, wifie," he went on apologetically,
"you did look so pretty and plucky that
you ought to have seen yourself."

Sam had gone home on a furlough, and
in his place Dan had a very magnificent body
servant named Napoleon Bonaparte, and an
under-boy named Solomon. Napoleon
Bonaparte brushed the major's boots, and
Solomon brushed Napoleon's. Napoleon
Bonaparte was a bright mulatto, Solomon
was as black as tar. It was Napoleon Bonaparte's
business to supply my room with
wood, but this task he delegated to Solomon.
Whatever menial work the major ordered

Napoleon Bonaparte to do, Napoleon turned
over to Solomon. "Solomon," he said,
"was nothin' but a free nigger nohow." It
came to pass finally that Solomon, ostensibly
hired to one master, in reality served two.
Of course, Napoleon Bonaparte feathered his
own nest and worked things so that the major
was really paying two men to do the work
of one. When the major could not ride
with me, he sent Napoleon Bonaparte to act
as groom. This Napoleon Bonaparte esteemed
an honor, and he only appointed Solomon
in his stead when he himself was in demand
as equerry for the major. Napoleon
always elected to follow the major in such
case, as that was higher employment in his
eyes than riding behind me. One morning I
stood waiting in my habit a long time for the
horses. At last when they appeared Solomon
came on a sorry mount, leading Tom
Hodges. The procession moved at a snail's
pace, and Solomon looked dreadfully glum.

"What makes you so late?" I asked impatiently.

"Dunno 'zackly, marm. Evvybody in de
camp got de debbul in 'em. Major, he got

He laughed. "Solomon has the grumps this
morning. He seemed to have quite a time with
your namesake, as well as with the rest of us.
Napoleon Bonaparte sent him to rub Nellie Grey
down and saddle her for me. The mare threw
her head up and jerked him about a little, and
we could hear him saying: 'Whoa! Nellie Grey,
whoa! You got de

debbul in you too! Who-a, Nellie Grey!'
Between the two of them I am having rather a
hard time lately," said Dan. "Solomon blames
'Poleon Bonaparte directly for all the hard times
he has, and me indirectly. If something isn't done
as it should be, and I take Napoleon to task, he
lays it thick and hard on Solomon. Solomon did
have a time of it at camp this morning. You see,
'Poleon Bonaparte is very particular about the
way the horses are kept, but he makes Solomon
do all the rubbing down, and Solomon doesn't
understand how to manage horses and is a little
afraid of them. 'Poleon Bonaparte found fault
with his job this morning, and made him rub
Nellie Grey down twice. It naturally occurred to
Nellie that so much rubbing meant an
opportunity for playing. Black Solomon really
was the good angel at camp, for before he and
Nellie Grey got us to laughing, swearing had
been thick enough to cut with a knife. I had
turned loose on 'Poleon, and 'Poleon had turned
loose on Solomon."

"Make! Nell, how you talk! And 'Poleon's
got just as much right to hire a nigger as I have
to own one."

And during our stay in Charlottesville Dan's
servants gave him "more trouble," he said,
"than fighting the Yankees." But it was a very
happy time in my life.

The late springtime of '64 found me again in
Petersburg.

More vacant chairs, more broken hearts,
more suffering, and starvation nearer at hand
was what I found there. Milicent was spending
her time in nursing the sick and wounded in the
hospital, and winning from them the name that
has clung to her ever since. There are old
white-haired men in the South who still call her
"Madonna."

CHAPTER XXIII

"INTO THE JAWS OF DEATH"

ONE lovely morning mother sat at an upper
window shelling peas for dinner. The window
commanded a view of the Petersburg heights and
beyond. Presently she stopped shelling peas, and
gazed intently out of the window.

"What is that on the heights, Nellie?" she
asked, and then, "What men are those running
about on the hill beyond?"

I came to the window and looked out. The
hills looked blue.

With a sinking heart I got the field-glass and
turned it southeast. The hills swarmed with
soldiers in Federal uniforms! Men in gray were
galloping up to the Reservoir and unlimbering
guns. We heard the roar of cannon, the rattle of
musketry. The heavens were filled with fire and
smoke. Men in blue were vanishing as they
came; they thought

Reservoir Hill a fort. That was the ninth of June,
when 125 old men and boys saved the town by
holding Kautz's command, 1,800 strong, at bay on
the Jerusalem Plank Road as long as they could
and long enough to give Graham's and
Studivant's batteries and Dearing's cavalry time
to rush to the front. The Ninth of June is
Petersburg's Memorial Day, her day of pride and sorrow.

A few days after - mother was shelling peas
again - whiz! whack! a shell sung through the air,
striking in Bolling Square. Whiz! whack! came
another, and struck Mrs. Dunlop's house two doors
from us. Mrs. De Voss, our neighbor on one side,
and Mrs. Williams and her two daughters who lived
on the other, ran in, pale with terror, and clamored
to go down into our cellar. We were like frightened
sheep. I half laugh, half cry now with vexation to
think how calmly and stubbornly mother sat shelling
peas in that window. She was bent on finishing her
peas before she moved. Finally we induced her to go
with us, and we all went down into the cellar. There
we huddled together for the rest of the day, and until
late into the

night, not knowing what went on above or
outside, little Bobby asleep in his mother's lap,
and the rest of us too frightened to sleep. At last,
when we had heard no guns for a long time, we
crept upstairs and lay down on our beds and
tried to sleep. The next morning the shelling
began again. Shells flew all around us. One
struck in the yard next to ours; another horrid,
smoking thing dropped in our own yard. We
decided that it was time to abandon the house.

As the firing came from the south and the
east, and the Appomattox was on the north of
the city, we could only turn to the west. Any
other direction and we would have run toward
the guns or into the river. With no more rhyme
or reason than this in our course we started up
Washington Street, running west, but without
regard to the order of our going.

Crossing the railroad at Jarrett's Hotel, I saw
a Confederate soldier whom I recognized as an
old playmate and friend of Norfolk days We
stopped each other.

"Why, we were at Miss Anne Walkers and
the shells were bursting in our yard, and we are
getting out of the way."

Zip! a shell passed over my head and burst a
few yards away. I didn't wait to say good-by,
but ran along Washington Street for my life. At
last we got to Mr. Venable's house, which was
out of the range of the guns, and there we
stopped with others. Many people had passed us
on our way, and we had passed many people, all
running through Washington Street for dear life.
Everybody seemed to be running; in Mr.
Venable's house quite a crowd was gathered.
His family were from home, but their friends
filled the house. We watched from doors and
windows, and talked of our friends who had
fallen, of the Ninth of June, and of how Fort Hell
and Fort Damnation got their names. We spoke
of a friend who had kissed wife and children
goodby, and gone out that fateful Ninth with the
militia up the Jerusalem Plank Road to Fort Hell.
Later in the day a wagon had come lumbering
up to the door, blood dripping from it as it jolted
along. In it lay the husband and father, literally
shot to pieces.

His little boy walked weeping behind it. His
widow had shrouded him with her own hands,
and trimmed his bier herself with the fragrant
June flowers that were growing in her
yard - flowers which he had loved and helped to
tend. She had a house full of little ones around
her. She had never known how to work, and
now she was going about finding tasks to do,
bearing up bravely and strengthening her
children, she who had been as dependent upon
her husband for love and tenderness as his
children were upon her.

As the day waned we saw people hurrying
past the Venable home bearing the wounded. I
remember one poor fellow who was lying on a
stretcher that was borne by his friends. He
seemed to be shot almost to pieces. Graycoats
were passing now, marching into the city.

As we sat at supper that night - a large party
it was at that hospitable board - a servant
brought a message to the three of us. A
gentleman - a soldier - wished to see us. I went
into the hall, and there was Walter Taylor. I
don't think I was ever so glad to see anybody in
my life. Walter was not only

"Walter," but he was General Lee's adjutant,
and the very sight of him meant help to us. What
did mother, Millie, and I do but throw our arms
around his neck and kiss him like crazy women.

"I can't stop a minute," he said. "I heard you
were here, and felt that I must come out to see
how you were getting along. But I must go
straight back to my command. Let me know if I
can do anything for you."

"Walter, where is Dan?"

"I don't know, Nell, but I think he will be
here to-night - if he is not here already."

We felt like clinging to Walter and holding
him back. I for one had lost my nerve. I was
sick of war, sick of the butchery, the anguish,
the running hither and thither, the fear. Soon
after supper my husband came in. I was
tremblingly glad to see him again, to touch his
warm living body, to see that he was not
maimed and mutilated - yet it hung over me all
the time that he must go away, in a few
minutes - to come back, or be brought
back - how? I kept my hand on him all the time
he sat beside me. Every

as long as there is a place to run to. I'm not
going to stand still and let a shell strike me to
please anybody. I'm for getting away from town.
If I had my way we'd take to the woods this
night, and let the Yankees have it."

"They'd mighty soon find us in the woods."

"Then I'd move on. They can have
everywhere they come to now, as far as I am
concerned."

Dan looked aghast. I was completely
demoralized. Knowing he must go, I summoned
all my strength and braced myself for the
parting, but though Dan was sorry for me, my
effort to be brave was so comical that he had to
laugh. By morning the range of the guns was
changed, shells were flying all over the city, and
our present quarters were not exempt. Zip! zip!
crack! bang! the nasty things went everywhere.

We piled ourselves, pell-mell, helter-skelter
into the first ambulance we could get and
started out Washington Street again as fast as
ever we could get the driver to urge his horses.

Everybody was racing out Washington
Street, still running west. Pell-mell, helter-skelter,
they ran, any way to get out of the range of the
horrid, whizzing, singing, zipping bombs. We met
Mr. McIlvaine driving toward town, that is, in
the direction from which we were running.

He hailed us.

"Where are you going?"

"We don't know where we are going. We
are not going anywhere that we know of."

"Go to my house. My family are away, but I
can make you welcome. Quite a number of
people are out there now."

We found this to be the literal truth. All the
floors were covered with mattresses - if you
rolled off your own mattress you rolled on to
some one else's, for they were laid so thick that
they touched. But things might always be worse.

Mr. McIlvaine had an excellent cook. She
made delicious rolls and wonderful muffins and
wafers, and as far as skill went our provisions
were turned into delicious food. There was quite
a colony - seven women besides

ourselves - and we told Mr. McIlvaine
that we could not expect him to feed us all, that
we were thankful enough for shelter and to have
our cooking done, and that we would all throw in
and buy provisions. So we made a common
fund, and sent for such things as could be had by
Mr. McIlvaine whenever he went into town.

My husband came out to see me quite often
during the weeks that followed, and Colonel
Taylor and many of our military friends
remembered us by dropping in to tea and
spending an evening with us when they could.
There was a piano in the parlor, and our
evenings were often gay with singing, music,
and dancing. There was but one servant on the
place as I remember - the cook I have spoken
of, and whom I remember vividly and
affectionately for the good things to eat she set
before us. To cook for us, however, was about
all she could do. We had but few clothes with
us, and when these got soiled there was no
washerwoman to be had, so when Sue Williams
said she was going to wash her clothes herself
we all got up our washings, and went down into
the back

yard with her. We found some tubs and
drew our water, and made up some fire under
a pot, as we had seen the negroes do. I can
see Sue now, drawing water and lifting
buckets back and forth from the well. We
tied some clothes up in a sheet and put them
into the pot to boil; then we put some other
clothes in a tub and began to wash; meanwhile
we had to keep up the fire under the
pot. It was dinner hour by the time we got
thus far. The weather was very hot and
we were dreadfully tired, and we hadn't got
any clothes on the line yet. We stopped to
swallow our dinner, and went at it again.
The sun was going down when we had a pile
of clothes washed, rinsed, and wrung, ready
for the line. We didn't know what to do
about it. There didn't seem to be any precedent
that we had ever known for hanging
clothes out at sundown. On the other hand,
if we didn't spread them out they would mildew
- we had heard of such things. If they
had to be spread out, certainly there was no
better place to spread them than on the line.
So at sunset we hung out our clothes to dry.
There were handkerchiefs on the line and a

petticoat apiece. The rest of the clothes were in
the pot and the tub, and they are there now for
aught I know to the contrary. I don't know what
became of them, but I know we went into the
house and went to bed with the backache and
every other sort of ache. I have never in all my
life worked so hard as I worked that day trying
to wash my clothes out; and the next day the
clothes on the line looked yellow for all the labor
that was put upon them. I have never known
why they looked yellow - not for lack of work,
for we had rubbed holes in some of them. We
did not undertake to iron them for fear we
should make them look still worse, but wore
them rough dry.

Early one morning we waked suddenly, and
sprang to our feet and reached for each other's
trembling hands. There had been a sudden and
terrific noise. The earth was shaking. That
awful thunder! that horrible quaking of the
earth! as if its very bowels were being rent
asunder! What was it? We tried to whisper to
each other through the darkness of our rooms,
but our tongues were dry and palsied with fear.
We feared

to draw the curtains of our windows, we dared
not move. That was the morning of the 30th of
July, the morning when the Crater was made
when an entire regiment was blown into the air,
and when into the pit left behind them Federals
and Confederates marched over each other, and
fought all day like tigers in a hole. If you ever go
to the quaint old town of Petersburg, you can
drive out the old Jerusalem Plank Road to Forts
Hell and Damnation, and you can turn out of it to
a large hole in the earth which is called the
Crater. The last time I was at the Crater it was
lined with grass; some sassafras bushes grew on
the sides; down in the hollow was a peach-tree
in blossom, a mocking-bird sang in it, and a
rabbit hopped away as I looked down.

Soon after the explosion occurred, we saw
from our windows that the McIlvaine place was
swarming with soldiers who were throwing up
earthworks everywhere. They were our own
soldiers, of course, and we applied for an
ambulance and got one, and went back in it to
Miss Anne's in town.

house felt when we three women and little
Bobby entered it. The dust was on everything
and there was a musty smell about everywhere.
That night Millie had high fever. Such a
wretched night as it was! no servants, no
conveniences, little or no food Millie in a raging
fever, little sleepy Bobby crying for his mother
and his supper; the shock of the Crater still upon
us, danger underneath, overhead, everywhere.
The next morning Millie's fever was lower, and
she seemed better.

"We must get her away from here, of she
will die," mother said.

But how? We could hear nothing of Dan
and didn't know where to find him. Mother sent
a note to General Mahone by a passing soldier
asking for a pass to Richmond. Her reply was
an ambulance and a driver who brought a note
from the general, saying that we would be
taken outside of the city to the nearest point to
where our trains from Richmond were allowed
to come. We got Millie into the ambulance and
were taken to the Dunlops', a beautiful place on
the Richmond Railroad. Here we waited for a
train which

did not come. Night came on; still we waited, but
no train. We sent into the house and asked for
lodgings. Answer came that the house was full,
and no more people could be taken in. Millie's
fever continued to rise. We sent again, saying
how ill she was, and begging for shelter for the
night. The same answer was returned, and there
we were out on the lawn, our shawls spread on
two trunks and Millie lying on them, and looking
as if every breath would be her last.

"Do you know where Colonel Walter Taylor
is stationed?" I asked our driver.

"Yes, ma'am. I know exactly where he is.
His camp is about a mile from here."

"How could I get a note to him?"

"I will go with it. I'll take one of the horses
out of the ambulance."

I scratched off:

"DEAR WALTER: We are out in the
woods near Dunlop's without any shelter, and
Millie is very ill. Can you help us?

"I don't know what to do, Nell," he said. "There
is no train to Richmond till noon to-morrow,
but you can't stay out here."

He went himself to the house, but without
effect.

"I will send you a tent and a doctor," he said.

"That is the best I can do for you. I wish I could
stay here with you all and help take care of
Millie to-night, but I must go back at once."

The tent came and with it Dr. Newton, ad
Millie was made as comfortable as was possible
on the trunks.

An old negress who was passing saw our
strait and brought us her pillow in a clean
pillow-case, and we put that under Millie's
head. We gave "aunty" some tea that we
had with us, and she took it to her cabin
and drew us a cup or two over her fire,
and we got Millie to swallow a little of it.
We picked Bobby up off the grass, and
dropped him on a pile of bags in a corner
of the tent.

At one time that night we thought Millie
would die - the doctor himself was doubtful if
she could live till morning. When morning came
she was alive, and that was all. Dr. Newton
sent for a stretcher and had her lifted on it into
the train. That was a terrible journey; there
were many delays, and we thought we should
never get to Richmond, but we were there at
last. We went into the waiting-room at the
station and sent for Major Grey's brother.
Fortunately, he was quickly found, and took us
to the house at which he boarded and where
there was a vacant room. The city was crowded,
and on such short notice it was the best he could
do, but it was stifling little place.

The room was small, its only window opened
on a little dark hallway, there was an
objectionable closet attached to the room, and
the close, unwholesome air made me sick and
faint as we opened the door. We laid Millie on
the bed. Suddenly she gasped, moaned
something that sounded like "I am dying!" and
seemed to be dead.

He picked her up in his arms, ran down the
steps with her, and into the open street. The
ladies in the house all came out to us, offering
help and sympathy, and with us got Millie into
the parlor, where we laid her on a lounge, and
where two physicians worked over her for
hours before they were sure she would recover
entirely from the attack. They said it was heart
failure. That evening we carried her on a
stretcher to the Spotswood Hotels. She was ill for
two weeks. Then Bobby was ill for five. Our
funds ran out. What moneys we had were in the
Yankee lines and inaccessible, and Millie
determined to put her education and
accomplishments to use. She set herself to
work to find something to do, and a lady from
Staunton who happened to meet us at this time,
learning that she wanted work, offered her a
position in a young ladies' school. So Lillie and
little Bobby went to Staunton.

CHAPTER XXIV

BY THE SKIN OF OUR TEETH

NOT long after they left, mother and I came
in from a round of calls one day to find a
telegram awaiting me:

"Dan wounded, but not dangerously. Come.

"Gus."

I hurried into my room and changed my
dress - to be careful of wearing apparel had
become a pressing necessity - while mother
went out to see about trains. We found there
was no Petersburg train till next day; there might
be one at seven in the morning. I was up at
daybreak, got a cup of tea and a biscuit, looked
at mother as she lay asleep, and with my satchel
and little lunch basket in my hand went to the
depot. There were crowds of soldiers there and
a train

about to start, but no woman was to go on it - it
was for soldiers only. I went from one person
who seemed to be in authority to another,
seeking permission to go, but received the same
answer everywhere - only soldiers were
allowed on the train.

"But," I said at last, "I am an officer's wife,
and he is wounded." I broke down with the
words, and in spite of my efforts to keep them
back my eyes filled with tears. I was what I
should have done in the beginning. I at once got
permission. I went into the car, took my seat at
the extreme end and shrunk into the smallest
space possible. The car was packed with
soldiers and I was the only woman on board.
When we were about half-way a young
lieutenant who occupied part of the seat in front
of me said:

"Madam, if I can be of any assistance to
you, please command me. I suppose you know
that our train stops within three miles of
Petersburg."

"I did not know," I said, "and I do not know
what to expect, or what I shall do, or where I
shall find my husband, although I suppose I shall
be met."

No one was waiting for me at the depot; but the
lieutenant secured an ambulance, got in it with
me, and directed the driver to take us to
Petersburg. We soon met Gus, Dan's cousin,
coming to meet me in a buggy. While I was
getting out of the ambulance into the buggy I
was plying Gus with questions about Dan. "Dan
is at our house," Gus told me. "His wound is a
very ugly one, but the doctors say that he'll get
well. At first we thought he wouldn't. He is shot
through the thigh, and will be laid up for some
time - that's what he's kicking about now."

Our most direct route to Mansfield, where
Dan was, lay through Petersburg, but we could
not follow that route. The Yankees were
everywhere about the city, Gus said, so we went
through the outer edge of Ettricks, skirting the
city proper. When we reached Mansfield my
husband on crutches met me at the door. He
looked pale and weak, but he was very cheery
and tried to joke.

whispered Grandmamma Grey. "He thought it
would shock you to find him in bed - that is why
he got up."

Of course I immediately put him under
orders. He returned to bed meekly enough, and
from that time I did all I could, and it was all I
could do, to keep him still until his wound healed.
We read and sang and played on the banjo and
had a good time. But as soon as he was able to
hobble he would go to camp every day and sit
around. General Lee's headquarters were about
a mile and a half from our house. Colonel Taylor
and a number of old friends were there, and Dan
could talk fight if he couldn't fight. At last he
insisted that he was ready to join his division, and
we set out to reach it in an ambulance drawn by
three mules.

When we came to Hatchers Run we found
that creek very much swollen and the bridge not
visible, but there were fresh tracks showing
where a wagon had lately gone over.

"That shows well enough where the bridge
is," said Dan, pointing to where the wagon had
left a track close to the water's edge and visible
for a short way under the water.

"Follow that track," he commanded our drivers
who was three-quarters of a man, being too
young for a whole man and too old for a lad,
"the mules will find the bridge. They are the most
sure-footed animals in the world. Just let them
have their heads as soon as they get in the
water."

Jerry obeyed instructions. Sure enough, the
mules got along well enough. That is, for a short
distance. Then, splash! down they went under
the water! We could just see their noses and
their great ears wiggling above the surface as
they struck out into a gallant swim for the
opposite shore. Splash! we went in after them,
and mules and ambulance were swimming and
floating together. Jerry was terrified, and began
to pray so hard that I got to laughing. All we
could see of the mules were six ears sticking out
of the water and wiggling for dear life, while our
ambulance swam along like a gondola.

But things changed suddenly. Our ambulance
was lifted slightly, came down with a jolt, and
wouldn't budge! The mules strained forwards
but to no good. The ambulance

wouldn't stir, and their harness held them back.
"The ambulance has caught on some part of
the bridge," said Dan.

We were in a serious dilemma. The road
was one in much use, and we pinned our hopes
to some passer-by, but as we waited minutes
seemed hours. No one came. Perhaps the
wagon that had preceded us had given warning
that the bridge was wrecked. We sat in the
ambulance and waited, not knowing what to do,
not seeing what we could do. By some saplings
which stood in the water we measured the rise
of the tide, and we measured its rise in the
ambulance by my trunk - I was getting wet to
my knees. Finally I sat on top of my trunk and
drew my feet up after me. The situation was
serious enough, and Dan began to look very
anxious - Hatchers Run was always regarded as
a dangerous stream in flood time. Still, no sign of
any one coming. The rain continued to fall and
the water to rise.

"At this rate we are sitting here to drown,"
Dan said. "There's but one way out of it that I
can see. From what I know

of the situation of our army there
must be an encampment near here.
Jerry, climb out of this ambulance over
the backs of these hind mules till you
get to that leader. Get on him, cut him loose,
and swim out of this. Ride until you find an
encampment and bring us help."

But Jerry didn't look at it that way.

"I'm skeered ter fool 'long dat ar mule. I ain't
nuvver fooled 'long er mule in de water. I kaint
have no notion of de way he mought do wid me.
You kaint 'pend on mules, Mars Dan, ter do jes
lak you want 'em ter on dry land, much less in de
water. Arter I git out dar, cut dat ar mule loose,
an' git on him, he mought take out an' kyar me
somewhar I didn't wanter go. I mought nuvver
git ter no camp, nor nowhar, Mars Dan, ef I go
ter foolin' 'long er dat mule out dar in de water."

The major caught his shoulders, and turned
his face to the stream. "Have you watched that
water rising out there for nothing?" he asked
sternly. "We are sure to be drowned if you
don't do as I tell you - all of us."

death Jerry chose the latter, crawled over the
hind mules, got on the leader and rode him off.
He took this note with him:

"Nearest Encampment of any Division,
C. S. A.:
"I am in the middle of Hatchers Run in an
ambulance with my wife. The stream is rising
rapidly and ambulance filling with water. Send
immediate relief.

"DANIEL V. GREY, "Adjutant of the Thirteenth."

After the boy was gone there we sat and
waited while the water rose. I got very cold and
Dan, who was yet weak from his wound and
confinement, got chilled and stiff. After more
than an hour of waiting we heard from the
woods on the other side a noise as of men
running, and then there came rushing out of the
woods toward us thirteen men of mighty girth
and stature. They were Georgia mountaineers
who had been sent to our rescue. When they
came to the water they didn't like the look and
feel of it, and evidently didn't want to get in it.

"Wall, I'm blowed! An' she's right out thar in
the middle er that run, an' she ain't a-hollerin' and
a-cryin'! Tell you uns what I'll do. I'll swim out
there and bring her back on my back. An' then
I'll swim back agin an' bring you on my back."

"I can't!" I said. "I'm cold enough to die
now, and I can't get in that water. I'll die if I do."

The giant gave orders. The men hung back.
Then we heard him roaring like a bull of
Bashan.

"Git into that ar water, evvy man of you
uns, an' swim fur that ar ambulance! I was put
in comman' er this here expuddition, an'
means ter comman' it. 'Bey orders, you uns is
got ter, or you uns 'll git reported to
headquarters ez I'm a sinner. Git in that :har
water. Furrard! Swim!"

How well I remember the great,
good natured giant as he swam around our
ambulance, bobbing up and down, and taking n
our bearings!

"You see, cap," he said, "all the bridge is
washed away but the sleepers, an' that's

"Now, cap, soon's them mules is loose we
uns 'll lif' the ambulance off er this, an' pull you
uns to shore. Jes you uns make yourse'fs easy,
and we uns 'll git you uns out er this."

The mules unhitched were led to shore, and
then the men pulled the ambulance safely to land.
I don't remember what became of the thirteen
mighty men. Nor do I recall clearly the rest of
that cold ride when I shivered in my clothes, but I
remember getting to a house where I was seated
in a great chair close to a blazing fire of hickory
logs, and I remember that when I went to get out
my night-dress I found all the clothes in my
trunk wet, and that when I went to bed I felt as
if I were going to be ill, and that I rested badly.
But the next morning I was up and on my way
again. Again we came to a swollen stream. This
time we could see the bridge, and it wobbled
about. Dan thought it was safe to drive over. But
not I! Just then some gentlemen came up
behind us and insisted that I was right. So I got
out of the

ambulance and was helped across on some logs
or beams or something which stretched across
the stream underneath the bridge, and may have
been a part of it, but whatever they were I
thought them more secure than an ambulance
and mules and an uncertain bridge. I made Dan
cross this way, too, though he said it wasn't best
for his leg, and made all sorts of complaints
about it. The ambulance was obliged to cross on
the bridge, and the devoted Jerry drove it,
quarreling and complaining and praying all the
way. We had not gone much farther before, lo!
here was Stony Creek, swollen to bursting,
rushing and furious, and again a hidden bridge.

"I nuvver seed so much high water befo' in
all my life," said Jerry, thoroughly disgusted,
"nor so dang'ous. Water behin' an' befo'. We all
is in a bad way."

There was a wagoner on the bank who said
the bridge was all right and but slightly under
water. I protested, but Dan made Jerry drive in.
I wanted to turn back. But Dan argued that
there was as bad behind us, and that he must
get to camp by the time he

was due, and after a little the mules found their
footing and kept it, though the water swished and
whirled over the bridge. We saw a man and a
horse swept down the stream - I thought they
might have been swept by the current off the
very bridge we were crossing. The current was
too strong for the horse; he could do nothing
against it, and had given up. As they passed
under a tree the man reached up, caught a
sweeping branch and swung himself up in the
tree; the horse was drowned before our eyes
before we got across the bridge.

We left the man in the tree, but promised to
send him help. There was a house two miles
from the creek, and to this we drove. It was full
of people; the parlor was full, the halls were full,
and the kitchen and the bedrooms were full of
men, women, and children. It reminded me of a
country funeral where people are piled up in the
halls, on the steps, and everywhere a person can
stand or sit. Soldiers were always passing to and
fro in those days and stopping for the night at
any convenient wayside place, and as for not
taking a soldier in - well, public opinion made

it hot for the man who would not shelter a
wayfaring soldier and share the last crust with
him. The house held a large number of soldiers
that night, and in addition a water-bound
wedding-party. On this side the creek was the
groom; on the other side the bride. The groom
had on his good clothes - good clothes were a
rarity then - but he looked most woebegone.
We told the people in the house about the
man in the tree; and every man in the house
went down to see about him.

They called out to him saying they would
throw him ropes and pull him in, but when they
tried to throw the ropes out to him they found
that he could not be reached in that way. The
tree was too far from the shore. It was after
midnight when they gave up trying to reach him
with ropes. Then they told him to keep his
courage up till morning, and they made a great
bonfire on the banks, and some of them stood by
it and talked to him all night. First one party and
then another would go out and stand by the
bonfire, and keep it up, and talk to him. The
relieved party would come to the

CHAPTER XXV

THE BEGINNING OF THE END

WHILE I was at Hicksford I stayed at General
Chambliss's. I was very happy there. Dan's camp was
not far off, and he came to see me very often and
every morning sent his horses to me. In my rides I
used frequently to take the general's little son, Willie,
along as my escort, and one morning, when several
miles distant from home and with our horses' heads
turned homeward, who should ride out from a bend in
the road and come toward us but two full-fledged
Yankees in blue uniform and armed to the teeth. My
heart went down into the bottom of my horse's heels,
and I suppose Willie's heart behaved the same way.
We did not speak, we hardly breathed, and we were
careful not to quicken our pace as we and our
enemies drew nearer and nearer, and passed in that
lonely road a yard between our horses and theirs.

We did not turn back; we crept along the road to
the bend, until our horses' tails got well around
the bend. Then Willie and I gave each other a
look, and took out at a wild run for home. We
went straight as arrows, and over everything in
our way. I had all I could do that day to stick on
Nellie Grey, who went as if she knew Yankees
were behind - only in her mind it must have been
the whole of Grant's army. Dan laughed our
"narrow escape" to scorn, and said the two
Yankees were probably Confederates in good
Yankee clothes they had confiscated. At this
time Confederates would put on anything they
found to wear, from a woman's petticoat to a
Yankee uniform, but Dan never could convince
us that those two Yankees were not Yankees.

After this I rebelled less against going out, as
I sometimes had to do, in "Miss Sally's
kerridge." This was an old family carriage, a
great coach of state with the driver's perch very
high. The driver, an old family negro as
venerable and shaky in appearance as the
carriage, attached due importance to his office.
He thought no piece

of furniture on the place of such value as "Miss
Sally's kerridge." He cared for the horses as if
they had been babies. This part of the country
had not been so heavily taxed as some others in
the support of the two armies, and a little more
corn than was usual could be had. Uncle Rube
was sure that his horses got the best of what was
going, and also that everything a currycomb could
do for them was theirs. He himself when
prepared for his post as charioteer wore a suit of
clothes which must have been in the Chambliss
family for several generations, and an old beaver
hat, honorable with age and illustrious usage.
When we were taken abroad in "Miss Sally's
kerridge," we were always duly impressed by
Uncle Rube with the honor done us. On the
occasion of a grand review which took place not
far from General Chambliss's residence, I, with
three other ladies, went in the "kerridge." The
roads were awful - in those days roads were
always awful. Troops were traveling backward
and forward, artillery was being dragged over
them, heavy wagons were cutting ruts, and there
always seemed to be so much rain.

into the road ahead and seeking vainly "de bes'
place ter drive Miss Sally's kerridge along." He
said "dar warn't no bes' place," and was in
despair of ever getting that valuable vehicle
home in safety. At last the crash came! Down
went one carriage wheel into a mud-hole! It stuck
there, and we were rooted for the time being.
However, I think Uncle Rube would have got us
out but for some untimely assistance. Bob Lee,
the youngest of the Lees, and Bob Mason (the
son of the ex-United States Minister to France,
whose home was near General Chambliss's) came
riding by. They stopped and shook hands with us
through the carriage window, and asserted their
gallant intention of getting us out of our mud-hole.
They tried to leads the horses forward, to pull and
push "the kerridge" out, but in vain. Then Bob,
to Uncle Rube's utter amazement and indignation,
made him get down, while he, Bob, mounted
the box. Uncle Rube stood on the roadside, the
picture of chagrin and despair.

Bob had gathered the lines in one hand and
with the other was laying the whip on Rube's
pets. The horses, utterly unused to the whip,
plunged like mad. There was an ominous
sound! - our axle was broken, and we were
helplessly stuck in the mud.

Our young rescuers borrowed a cart from a
farmer near by and got us home in it. I have
forgotten how Uncle Rube managed, if I ever
knew. But I shall never forget the scene when
several hours later we all sat around the fire in
the sitting-room, chatting over our adventures,
and Uncle Rube, hat in hand, came to the door
and made report to his mistress of the family
misfortune. His

And then Miss Sally, in spite of her efforts to
preserve a gravity befitting the calamity, broke
down like the "kerridge" and laughed
hysterically.

There was plenty to eat at General
Chambliss's. I always remember that fact when
it was a fact, because it was beginning to be so
pleasant and unusual to have enough to eat.
Hicksford hadn't been raided, and there were
still chickens on the roost, bees in the hive,
turkeys up the trees, partridges in the woods, and
corn in the barns. The barn, by the way, was
new, and the soldiers gave a ball in it. We all
went and had a most delightful evening. I well
remember that I went in "Miss Sally's kerridge,"
and that General Rooney Lee and I led off the
ball together. I remember, too, that we had a fine
supper: turkeys, chicken-salad, barbecued
mutton, roast pig with an apple in his mouth,
pound-cake, silver-cake, cheese-cake

or transparent pudding, "floating island" or "tipsy
squire"; plenty of bread, milk, sure-enough
coffee - everything and enough of it. We danced
till morning and leaving our gallant entertainers in
the gray dawn, went off to sleep nearly all day.

The next ball was in an old farmhouse where
some of our cavalry were quartered. We had
another good supper - everything good to eat and
plenty of it - like the first. There were no chairs
or furniture of any kind, as I remember, but there
were benches ranged around the barn for us to
sit on when resting during the pauses of the
dance. After a dance with him General Rooney
Lee led me back to the room where the banquet
was spread to taste something especially nice
which he liked and which I had not touched
- eating a good thing when you could get it was
a delightful and serious duty in those days. There
was quite a circle around us, and we were all
nibbling, laughing, chatting away as if there were
no such things as war and death in the land,
when a courier in muddy boots strode across the
room to the general, saluted, spoke a few words,
and the

general walked aside with him. The music was
enticing, and while the general was engaged with
the courier I went back with some one else to
the ballroom and took my place in the lancers.
We were clasping hands and bowing ourselves
through the grand chain when the dance was
interrupted. The army was to march.

There was great confusion, hurried
handshaking, sometimes no hand-shaking at all,
no time for good-bye. The soldiers could not
stand on the order of their going. I do not
remember how I came to the farmhouse, but I
know that my husband bundled me
unceremoniously into a cart with some people I
hardly knew, and sent me home, telling me to
pack my trunk but not to be disappointed if he
could not take me with him. I did not lie down at
all. I packed my trunk as soon as I got home,
then sat down and waited, and before long my
husband came for me in an ambulance. His
courier, Lieutenant Wumble, was with him, and
the ambulance was driven by an Irishman named
Miles. The horses were tied to the back of the
ambulance, and frequently my husband and

Lieutenant Wumble rode ahead reconnoitering. It
began to rain. "What made you always start in
the rain?" I have been asked by friends to whom
I was relating my campaigns. What I want to
know is, what made it always rain when I
started? Let me but step into an ambulance and
immediately it began to rain. My movements had
to be regulated by the movements of the army,
not by the weather, though really the weather
seemed to regulate itself by mine.

We found the roads worse as we advanced.
The farther we went the deeper was the mud.
Mud came up to the hubs of our wheels; the
mules could hardly pull their feet up out of the
miry mass in some places. At last we found
ourselves regularly "stuck in the mud." There
was no pushing or pulling the ambulance farther.
It was nearly dark, but fortunately we were near
a farmhouse, and at the side of the road where
we got stuck was a stile made by blocks of
unequal heights set on either side of a plank
fence. These blocks were simply sections of the
round body of a tree which had been sawed up.
On the opposite side of the stile a

pathway led to the house. The mud-hole in which
our ambulance was embedded was about ten
yards from the stile. My husband insisted that I
be carried bodily to the stile, and Lieutenant
Wumble, who was one of the most gallant
fellows in the world, took it as a matter of course
that he must carry me. He urged that he had
been brought along to be useful and that Dan had
never recovered entirely from his wound. But
Dan hooted at the idea! He was very much
obliged to the lieutenant, but really he was used
to this sort of thing, and understood lifting ladies
about much better than Wumble. It was not
altogether brute strength, but some science that
was required. So Dan stepped out of the
ambulance on to the side of the mud-hole, where
of course the ground was not so muddy as in the
center where we were stuck, but where it was
rather slippery, nevertheless. Balancing himself
nicely, he took me out, but just as he poised me
on his arm with scientific ease and grace he
slipped and fell backward, sprawling in the mud,
and I went over his head, sprawling, too.

Whereupon Lieutenant Wumble, laughing,
came to pick me up, saying as he did so:

"I told you that you ought to let me carry
you. Just lie there, major, and I'll come back for
you as soon as I set your wife down. Keep quiet,
major," as Dan swore at the mud and slipped
again, "and I'll pick you up and get you along all
right."

As Dan dragged himself up he was a perfect
mud man, and he had left the print of himself in
the mud behind him. They took us in at the
farmhouse, and sent men to help the driver prize
the ambulance out of the hole. They scraped the
mud off me, and a colored woman washed my
clothes and hung them by the fire, so they might
be dry by morning. Of course, this process put
me in bed at once. Our supper was poor and the
bed uncomfortable, but it was the best our hosts
could do.

After an uncomfortable night we started off
again toward Dinwiddie Court-house, which was
to be our next stopping-place. As we journeyed
on we knew that we were getting into most
dangerous quarters. The nearer we drew to
Petersburg the nearer we

were to the tangle of Federal and Confederate
lines; the nearer to skirmishers and scouts from
both armies. The night got blacker and
blacker - you could not see your hand before
you - and the blacker it grew the more
frightened old Miles became. Out of the
darkness where, invisible, he sat astride the
invisible mule he drove, he poured an unceasing
stream of complaint.

"Arrah! the divil a bit can Oi see where Oi'm
goin'. It's so dark ye couldn't see a light if there
was any. The mules, intilligint crathurs they are,
maybe they know where they be goin'. It's more
than the loikes of me does. But what Oi've got
agin a mule is that they don't know an honest
Amerikin in gray clothes - or mixed rags it is
now - from a nasty, thavin' Yankee."

If we were silent for a few minutes, then
Miles spoke out for company's sake, or asked
unnecessary questions perhaps to find out if we
were there, and that the Yankees hadn't spirited
us away.

"These woods are full of Yankees," he said.
"It's chock-full of them, it is. An' it's so dark, it
is, they could just come out

"Shut your mouth up, you fool!" said my
husband, who knew that the woods were full of
Yankees. "If we can't see them they can't see
us, and how are they to know but we are
Yankees unless you tell them, you blathering idiot?"

"The divil a bit Oi'll be tellin' 'em, the nasty
blue thaves. Thrust Miles O'Flannigan for thet.
But they could just come out o' them woods, they
could, an' take us all prisoners an' we'd never
know it. An' the driver's the fust man they'd git,
sure."

At last Dan got out, mounted his horse, and
rode in front of the ambulance.

"Now," said he to Miles, "follow me, and if
you open your d - mouth again, I'll blow your
brains out."

Lieutenant Wumble brought up the rear,
riding behind the ambulance with a cocked pistol.
And so we rode through the Egyptian darkness
of the night, and the now more than Egyptian
silence. Miles's mouth was effectually closed.
He followed Dan, whom

he could not see, by the sound of his horse's tread,
and as he was careful to keep as close to him as
possible we made better progress.

We had been in the darkness so long that none
of us knew our whereabouts. Presently we heard
the low, deep mutterings of thunder. It came
nearer and grew louder rapidly. Suddenly the sky
seemed rent! There came a sheet of white
lightning and with it an awful crash which made
my heart stand still. A tree a few feet from us
had been struck. The lightning had shown us that
we were only a few miles from the Court-house.
I have never known such a storm as the one
through which we traveled that night. One peal
of thunder did not die away before another
began. One instant we were in thick darkness
- a darkness that could be felt - the next,
ourselves, the woods, the road, were bathed in a
fierce white light. Between the Yankees and the
storm that night I think Miles would have
become a gibbering idiot but for the equalizing
influence of Dan's pistol.

us - ugh!" the rest of the sentence would be lost
in the darkness, but I knew that Miles was
feeling the salutary muzzle of Dan's pistol against
some part of his face.

By the time we entered the village the storm
had abated. We drove to the hotel. It was
crowded, packed with soldiers; no room for us,
nor food either, and nine o'clock at night!

"Two miles the other side of town there is a
place of entertainment where you can be
accommodated, I think," the hotel proprietor told
Dan.

"I don't go any farther to-night with my
wife," Dan said resolutely.

"It's not mesilf as wants to be traveling any
farther either," Miles put in. "It's divil a bit of a
pleasure ride Oi'm havin'."

He was promptly silenced, and was made to
drive us around to the various places in the
village that had been mentioned; and in spite of
the discouragements received, he added his
earnest solicitations to ours that we might be
lodged for the night. But in spite of our own pleas
and Miles's eloquence, midnight found us out at
the two-miles place. I

don't know how long it had taken us to make
those two miles. We had toiled over muddy
roads, through fierce extremes of light and
darkness, and amid deafening thunder, for the
storm had come on again with renewed fury
and was at its height when we stopped at the
house to which we had been directed. In
response to my husband's knock an old man
came to the door - the meanest old man I
have ever seen before or since. He said we
couldn't come in, there wasn't standing room
in the house, the house was full of soldiers.
My husband said he would come in - that he
had a lady with him. I think he would have
shot that old man then and there rather than
have carried me farther. But the old man
said if he had a lady with him all the more
reason why he should not come in; the soldiers
were drinking, and he whispered to Dan,
and I saw Dan give in. He told Dan that he
had a cousin in the village who would house
us, and he directed us how to get to this
cousin's house, so we turned and drove back
to the village we had just left. We made
better time on our return, as we were better
directed and took a shorter route, found the

It was a strange old house, built in colonial
days, with the veranda that ran all around it
supported by tall Corinthian columns. We woke
the owner up - an old man, who came down to
the door shivering, candle in hand, and led us
through a latticed room, then into another room
and up a narrow flight of stairs with sharp turns
to a bedroom with dormer windows and ancient
furniture. We were welcome to our lodgings, he
said, but he had nothing to eat in the house - we
would be welcome to it if he had. He looked
gaunt and hungry himself.

We had no fire. He left us his candle and
went down in the dark himself and we got to bed
as quickly as possible. Lieutenant Wumble, who
was down-stairs looking after Miles and the
horses and the mules, got himself stowed away
somewhere.

Next morning my husband was ill; but the old
man's wife gave him some of her remedies, and
with the help of a little money from me got
something for us all to eat. About noon Dan
insisted that he was able to travel,

CHAPTER XXVI

HOW WE LIVED IN THE LAST DAYS OF
THE CONFEDERACY

THOUGH the last act of our heroic tragedy
was already beginning I was so far from
suspecting it that I joined mother at the Arlington,
prepared to make a joke of hardships and wring
every possible drop of pleasure out of a winter in
Richmond, varied, as I fondly imagined, by
frequent if brief visits from Dan.

The Arlington was kept on something like the
European plan, not from choice of landlady or
guests but from grim necessity. Feeding a houseful
of people was too arduous and uncertain an
undertaking in those days for a woman to assume.
Mrs. Fry, before our arrival in July, had informed
her boarders that they could continue to rent their
rooms from her, but that they must provide their
own meals. We paid her $25 a month for our
room - the price of a house

in good times and in good money. During my
absence in Mansfield, Hicksford, and other
places, mother, to reduce expenses, had rented
half of her room and bed to Delia McArthur, of
Petersburg. I now rented a little bed from Mrs.
Fry for myself, and set it up in the same room.

We had become so poor and had so little to
cook that we did most of our cooking ourselves
over the grate, each woman often , cooking her
own little rations. There was an old negress living
in the back yard who cooked for any or all of us
when we had something that could not be
prepared by ourselves over the grate. Sometimes
we got hold of a roast, or we would buy two
quarts of flour, a little dab of lard, and a few
pinches of salt and treat ourselves to a loaf of
bread, which the old negress cooked for us,
charging ten dollars for the baking. But as a rule
the grate was all sufficient. We boiled rice or
dried apples or beans or peas in our stew-pan, and
we had a frying-pan if there was anything to fry.

Across the hall from us Miss Mary Pagett, of
Petersburg, had a room to herself. She

worked in one of the departments, and in order that
she might have her meals in time she went into
partnership with us. Every morning she would put
in with our rations whatever she happened to have
for that day, and mother would cook it and have it
ready when she came. Down-stairs under our
room Mr. and Mrs. Sampson, their daughters Nan
and Beth, and their son Don, all of Petersburg and
old neighbors and friends of ours, lived, slept,
cooked, and ate in two rooms, a big and a little one.
They lived as we did, cooking over their grates.

Sometimes we all put what we had together
and ate in company. When any of us secured at
any time some eatable out of the common, if it
was enough to go around we invited the others
into breakfast, dinner, or tea, as the case might
be. It must be understood that from the meal
called "tea," the beverage from which the meal
is named was nearly always omitted. Our fare
was never very sumptuous - often it was
painfully scanty. Sometimes we would all get so
hungry that we would put together all the money
we could rake and scrape and buy a bit of roast

We all bought coal in common. Mother's,
mine, and Delia's portion of the coal was a ton,
and we had to keep it in our room - there was
no other place to store it. We had a box in our
room which held a ton, and the coal was brought
up-stairs and dumped into that box. I can see
those darkies now, puffing and blowing, as they
brought that coal up those many steps. And how
we had to scuffle around to pay them! For some
jobs we paid in trade - only we had very little to
trade off. How that room held all its contents I
can't make out. Dan sent me provisions by the
quantity when he could get any and get them
through to me. He would send a bag of potatoes
or peas, and he never sent less than a firkin of
butter - delicious butter from Orange County.
The bags of peas, rice, and potatoes were
disposed around the room, and around the hearth
were arranged our pots, pans, kettles, and
cooking utensils generally. When we bought
wood that was put under the beds. In addition to
all our useful and ornamental articles we had our
three

selves and our trunks; such clothing as we
possessed had to be hung up for better
keeping - and this was a time when it behooved us
to cherish clothes tenderly. Then there was our
laundrying, which was done in that room by
ourselves.

And we had company! Certainly we seemed
to have demonstrated the truth of the adage,
"Ole Virginny never tire." We had company, and
we had company to eat with us, and enjoyed it.

Sometimes our guests were boys from camp
who dropped in and took stewed apples or boiled
peas, as the case might be. If we were
particularly fortunate we offered a cup of tea
sweetened with sugar. The soldier who dropped
in always got a part - and the best part - of what
we had. If things were scant we had smiles to
make up for the lack of our larder, and to hide its
bareness.

How we were pinched that winter! how
often we were hungry! and how anxious and
miserable we were! And yet what fun we had!
The boys laughed at our crowded room and we
laughed with them. After we bought our wood it
was Robert E. Lee's adjutant

who first observed the ends sticking out from
under the bed; he was heartily amused and
greatly impressed with the versatility of our
resources.

"I confidently expect to come here some day
and find a pig tied to the leg of the bed, and a
brood or two of poultry utilizing waste space,"
said Colonel Taylor.

He wasn't so far out of the way, for we
did get hold of a lean chicken once some way
or other, and we tied it to the foot of the bed,
and tried to fatten it with boiled peas.

We devised many small ways for making a
little money. We knit gloves and socks and sold
them, and Miss Beth Sampson had some old
pieces of ante-bellum silk that she made into
neckties and sold for what she could get. For the
rest, when we had no money, we went without
those things which it took money to buy. With
money a bit of meat now and then, a taste of
sorghum, and even the rare luxury of a cup of
tea sweetened with sugar, was possible. Without
money, we had to depend upon the bags of peas,
dried apples, or rice.

one day when we were getting supper ready,
"there are three things which shall never come
into it, rice, dried apples, and peas."

Mother was at the bureau slicing bread, Delia
McArthur was setting the table, I was getting
butter out of the firkin and making it into prints,
and Miss Mary with gloves on - whenever she
had anything to do she always put gloves
on - was peeling and slicing tomatoes.

"I never want to hear of rice, dried apples,
or peas again!" came from all sides of the room.

"If this war is ever at an end," sighed poor
mother, "I hope I may sit down and eat at a
decent table again. And I fervently hope that
nobody will ever set a dish of rice, peas, or dried
apples before me! If they do, I shall get up and
leave the table."

"Me too," I piped. "Even if I didn't hate the
things I should feel sensitive on the subject and
take the offering of such a dish to me as a
personal reflection."

One day we agreed to have a feast. The
Sampsons were to bring their contributions, Miss
Mary and Delia McArthur to put in

theirs as usual, and mother and I to contribute
our share, of course. Each of us had the privilege
of inviting a friend to tea. Our room was chosen
as the common supper-room because it had fewer
things in it and was less crowded than the
Sampsons'. The Sampsons, in addition to their
coal-box, wood-pile, bags and barrels of
provisions, had one more bed than we had, and
also a piano. We had our tea-party and, guests
and all, we had a merry time.

I never remember having more fun in my life
than at the Arlington, where sometimes we were
hungry, and while the country, up to our doors,
bristled with bayonets, and the air we breathed
shook with the thunder of guns.

For hungry and shabby as we were, crowded
into our one room with bags of rice and peas,
firkins of butter, a ton of coal, a small wood-pile,
cooking utensils, and all of our personal property,
we were not in despair. Our faith in Lee and his
ragged, freezing, starving army amounted to a
superstition. We cooked our rice and peas and
dried apples, and hoped and prayed. By this time
our bags took up little room. We had had a

bag of potatoes, but it was nearly empty. there
were only a few handfuls of dried apples
left - and I must say that even in the face of
starvation I was glad of that! - and there was a
very small quantity of rice in our larder. We had
more peas than anything else.

I had not heard from my husband for more
than a week - indeed, there seems to have been
in Richmond at this time a singular ignorance
concerning our reverses around Petersburg.
There were hunger and nakedness and death and
pestilence and fire and sword everywhere, and
we, fugitives from shot and shell, knew it well,
but, somehow, we laughed and sang and played
on the piano - and never believed in actual
defeat and subjugation.

Sunday morning, the second of April, as
President Davis sat in his pew at St. Paul's
Church, a slip of paper was brought to him. He
read it, quietly arose, and left the church.

General Lee advised the evacuation of
Richmond by eight o'clock that night. That was
what rumor told us at the Arlington. At first we
did not believe it, but as that spring day wore on
we were convinced. The

Sabbath calm was changed to bustle and
confusion - almost into riot. The streets were full
of people hurrying in all directions, but chiefly in
the direction of the Danville depot. Men, women,
and children jostled each other in their haste to
reach this spot. Loaded vehicles of every
description rattled over the pavements.

During the day proclamation was made that
all who wished could come to the Commissary
Department and get anything they wanted in the
way of provisions - without pay. I for one, in
spite of my loathing for dried apples and peas,
and a lively objection to starvation, would not
entertain the thought at first. But the situation
was serious. We discussed it in council, sitting
around our room on beds; chairs, trunks, and the
floor. We could not foresee the straits to which
we might be brought. We considered that the
evacuation of Richmond implied we knew not
what. Unless we provided now by laying in some
stores we might actually starve. Besides, Mrs.
Sampson said she was just bound to have a
whole barrel of flour, and she was going for it.
That declaration wound

up the conference. Mother said she would go
with Mrs. Sampson, and I must needs go, I
thought, to protect mother. We put on our
bonnets - home-made straw trimmed with
chicken feathers - and started. Such a crowd as
we found ourselves in! such a starveling mob! I
got frightened and sick, and mother and Mrs.
Sampson were daunted. We had not gone many
squares before we changed our course, and went
to Mrs. Taylor's (Colonel Walter Taylor's
mother) and I ran up the steps and asked her to
lend us Bob, her youngest son, who was at home
then, for our escort.

She and Bob explained regretfully that he
could not serve us. Walter was to be married
that day, and Bob had his hands full at home.
"Married?" I cried in astonishment. I had
known of his engagement, and that he expected
to be married as soon as possible, but marrying at
this crisis was incredible.

"Yes," said Bob. "I took the despatch to
Betty while she was at church this morning. He
told her to be ready and he would come to
Richmond this afternoon for the ceremony.

You see, General Lee is going to move
the army west, and nobody knows for how long it
will be gone, nor what will happen, and if Betty is
married to Walter she can go to him if he gets
hurt."

Of course, as Bob had to make all the
necessary arrangements for the event his
escort at the present moment was out of the
question.

Somehow Mrs. Sampson managed to get her
barrel of flour and have it brought to her room,
but we didn't get anything.

That afternoon as I sat at my window I saw
Walter ride up to the Crenshaws', where Betty
was staying. He remained in the house just long
enough for the ceremony to be performed, came
out, sprang on his horse, and rode away rapidly.

President Davis and his Cabinet left
Richmond that afternoon in a special train.
Everybody who could go was going. We had no
money to go with, though we did not know
where we would have gone if the money had
been forthcoming.

As darkness came upon the city confusion
and disorder increased. People were running

about everywhere with plunder and provisions.
Barrels and boxes were rolled and tumbled about
the streets as they had been all day. Barrels of
liquor were broken open and the gutters ran with
whisky and molasses. There were plenty of
straggling soldiers about who had too much
whisky, rough women had it plentifully, and many
negroes were drunk. The air was filled with yells,
curses, cries of distress, and horrid songs. No one
in the house slept. We moved about between
each other's rooms, talked in whispers, and tried
to nerve ourselves for whatever might come. A
greater part of the night I sat at my window.

In the pale dawn I saw a light shoot up from
Shockoe Warehouse. Presently soldiers came
running down the streets. Some carried balls of
tar; some carried torches. As they ran they fired
the balls of tar and pitched them onto the roofs of
prominent houses and into the windows of public
buildings and churches. I saw balls pitched on the
roof of General R. E. Lee's home. As the day
grew lighter I saw a Confederate soldier on
horseback pause almost under my window. He

wheeled and fired behind him; rode a short
distance, wheeled and fired again; and so on,
wheeling and firing as he went until he was out of
sight. Coming up the street from that end toward
which his fire had been directed and from which
he had come, rode a body of men in blue
uniforms. It was not a very large body, they rode
slowly, and passed just beneath my window.
Exactly at eight o'clock the Confederate flag that
fluttered above the Capitol came down and the
Stars and Stripes were run up. We knew what
that meant! The song "On to Richmond!" was
ended - Richmond was in the hands of the
Federals. We covered our faces and cried aloud.
All through the house was the sound of sobbing.
It was as the house of mourning, the house of
death.

Soon the streets were full of Federal troops,
marching quietly along. The beautiful sunlight
flashed back everywhere from Yankee
bayonets. I saw negroes run out into the street
and falling on their knees before the invaders hail
them as their deliverers, embracing the knees of
the horses, and almost preventing the troops
from moving forward.

It had been hard living and poor fare in
Richmond for negroes as well as whites; and the
negroes at this time believed the immediate
blessings of freedom greater than they would or
could be.

The saddest moment of my life was when I
saw that Southern Cross dragged down and the
Stars and Stripes run up above the Capitol. I am
glad the Stars and Stripes are waving there now.
But I am true to my old flag too, and as I tell this
my heart turns sick with the supreme anguish of
the moment when I saw it torn down from the
height where valor had kept it waving for so long
and at such cost.

Was it for this, I thought, that Jackson had
fallen? for this that my brave, laughing Stuart
was dead - dead and lying in his grave in
Hollywood under the very shadow of that flag
floating from the Capitol, in hearing of these
bands playing triumphant airs as they marched
through the streets of Richmond, in hearing of
those shouts of victory? O my chevalier! I had to
thank God that the kindly sod hid you from all
those sights and sounds so bitter to me then. I
looked toward Hollywood

with streaming eyes and thanked God for
your sake. Was it to this end we had fought and
starved and gone naked and cold? to this end that
the wives and children of many a dear and gallant
friend were husbandless and fatherless? to this
end that our homes were in ruins, our State
devastated? to this end that Lee and his footsore
veterans were seeking the covert of the
mountains?

CHAPTER XXVII

UNDER THE STARS AND STRIPES

THE Arlington is one-half of a double house,
a veranda without division serving for both
halves. Just before noon up rode a regiment of
Yankees and quartered themselves next door.
We could hear them moving about and talking,
and rattling their sabers. But I must add that they
were very quiet and orderly. There was no
unnecessary noise. They all went out again, on
duty, I suppose, leaving their baggage and
servants behind them. They did not molest or
disturb us in any way. After a while we heard a
rap on the door, and on opening it three men
entered. They were fully armed, and had come,
as they said, to search the house for rebels. The
one who undertook to search our rooms came
quite in and closed the door while his companions
went below. He was very drunk. Anxious to get
rid of him quickly I helped him in his search.

Going to the bed I threw the mattress over
so he could see that no one was concealed
beneath. He followed and touched my arm
again.

"Good Secesh as you is, sis. I ain't agwine to
look into nothin', sis."

"There's nothing for you to find," I informed
him, as I pulled a bureau drawer open for his
inspection.

He waved it away with scorn. "I," he
repeated, touching his breast, "am good Secesh.
Don't want to see nothin'. Don't you say
nothin' - I'm good Secesh as you is, sis."
I led the way into the next room to be
searched, he following, asseverating in tipsy
whispers, "Good Secesh as you is, sis," every
few minutes.

friend, glancing around. "That other fellow out
there, he'll take it from you. But I won't take it
from you. I won't take nothin'. I'm good Secesh
as you is, bud. Hide your gun, bud."

Down-stairs our friends were having a harder
time. The men who went through their rooms
searched everywhere, and tumbled their things
around outrageously. I could hear Mrs. Sampson
quarreling. They went away, but returned to
search again. She said she wouldn't stand it - she
would report them. She saw General Weitzel and
made her complaint, and he told her that the men
were stragglers and had no authority for what
they had done. If they could be found they would
be punished. Before this time the fire had been
brought under control. Houses not a square from
us had been in flames. What saved us was an
open space between us and the nearest house
which had been on fire, and wet blankets. Mrs.
Fry's son had had wet blankets spread over our
roof for protection, and we had also kept wet
blankets hung in our windows. At one time,
however, cinders and smoke had blown into

A niece of my husband's, a beautiful girl of
eighteen, who had been ill with typhoid fever, had
to be carried out of a burning house that night
and laid on a cot in the street. She died in the
street and I heard of other sick persons who died
from the terror and exposure of that time.

As night came on many people were
wandering about without shelter, amid blackened
ruins. In the Square numbers were huddled for
the night under improvised shelter or without any
protection at all. But profound quiet reigned - the
quiet of desolation as well as of order. The city
had been put under martial law as soon as the
Federals took possession; order and quiet had
been quickly established and were well
preserved. Our next-door neighbors were so
quiet that with only a wall between we
sometimes forgot their presence.

I must tell of one person who did not weep
because the Yankees had come. That was a
little girl in the house who clapped her hands and
danced all around.

"The Yankees have come! the Yankees
have come!" she shouted, "and now we'll get
something to eat. I'm going to have pickles and
molasses and oranges and cheese and nuts and
candy until I have a fit and die."

She soon made acquaintances next door. The
soldiers or their servants gave her what she
asked for. She stuffed herself with what they
gave her, and that night she had a fit and died, as
she had said in jest she would, poor little soul!

That afternoon there was a funeral from the
house, and all day there were burials going on in
Hollywood.

Early on the morning of the third, when Miss
Mary Pagett threw open her blinds, she beheld
the gallery under her window lined with sleeping
Yankees. When Delia McArthur and I went out
for a walk we came upon Federal soldiers asleep
on the sidewalks and everywhere there was a
place for weary men to drop down and rest. In
all this time of horror I don't think anything was
much harder than making up our minds to "draw
rations from the Yankees." We said we would not do it - we could not do it!

But as hunger gained upon us and starvation
stared us in the face Mrs. Sampson rose up in
her might!

"I'll take anything I can get out of the
Yankees!" she exclaimed. "They haven't had any
delicacy of feeling in taking everything we've
got! I'm going for rations!"

So Mrs. Sampson nerved herself up to the
point where she took quite a pleasure and pride in
her mission. But not so with the rest of us. It
was a bitter pill, hard, hard to swallow. Mother,
to whose lot some species of martyrdom was
always falling, elected to go with Mrs. Sampson.
So forth sallied these old Virginia matrons to
"draw rations from the Yankees." However, once
on our way to humiliation we began to console
ourselves with thoughts of the loaves and fishes.
We would have enough to eat - sugar and tea
and other delights! Presently mother and Mrs.
Sampson returned, each with a dried codfish!
There was disappointment and there was
laughter. As each stately matron came marching
in, holding her codfish at arm's length before her,
Delia McArthur and I fell into each other's arms
laughing. Besides

the codfish, they had each a piece of fat,
strong bacon about the size of a handkerchief
folded once, and perhaps an inch thick. Now, we
had had no meat for a great while, and we were
completely worn out with dried apples and peas,
so we immediately set about cooking our bacon.
Having such a great dainty and rare luxury, we
felt ourselves in a position to invite company to
dinner. Mrs. Sampson invited half of the
household to dine with her, and we invited the
other half. Soon there was a great sputtering and
a delicious smell issuing from the Sampsons'
apartments and from ours.

Mother sliced the meat into the pan, and I sat
on the floor and held it over the fire, while Delia
spread the table. There was a pot on, which had
to be stirred now and then. I, who always had a
fertile brain in culinary matters, suggested that
the potatoes - I neglected to state that a handful
of potatoes had been dealt out with our
rations - should be sliced very thin and dropped
into the pan with the meat; and this done I fried
them quite brown, taking much pains and pride in
the achievement. Mother dished up the peas

and set them on the table before our guests; and
I passed around the fried meat and potatoes in
the frying-pan, from which the company, with
much grace and delicacy, helped themselves. Oh,
how delicious it was!

As for the codfish, we had immediately hung
that out of the window. The passer-by in the
street below could behold it, dangling from its
string, a melancholy and fragrant codfish. From
Mrs. Sampson's window just below ours hung
another melancholy codfish just like the one
above it. We paid the old negress to do things for
us with codfish - but not a whole codfish at a
time. We cut off pieces of it, and so made good
bargains, and one codfish go as far as possible.
We had by this time got to a place where
economy was not only a virtue but a necessity of
the direst sort.

The last time I was in Richmond I took my
children by the Arlington and pointed out to them
the window from which our codfish hung.

And now Betty Taylor - Walter's bride -
and I began planning to run through the

We did not think even then, you see, that the
war was over. Our faith was still crediting
superhuman powers to Lee and his skeleton
army. Then there was President Davis's
proclamation issued from Danville, wherein we
found encouragement for hope. Then came the
blow. We heard that Lee had surrendered. Lee
surrendered! that couldn't be true! But even
while we were refusing to believe it General Lee,
accompanied, as I remember, by one or two
members of his staff, rode up to his door. He
bared his weary gray head to the people who
gathered around him with greetings and passed
into his house.

Hope was dead at last. But other things,
precious and imperishable, remained to us and to
our children - the things that make for loyalty and
courage and endurance - an invincible faith - the
enduring record of heroic example. Lee had
surrendered, but Lee was still himself and our
own - a heritage to be handed down by
Americans to America when sectional
distinctions have been swallowed

up in the strength of a Union great enough
to honor every son, whatever his creed, who has
lived and died for "conscience' sake."

Sitting in my window that sorrowful day I
saw three officers in gray uniforms galloping
rapidly along Main Street. I recognized familiar
figures in them all before they came as far as the
Arlington. One turned out of Main Street, riding
home to his wife, as I knew, before they reached
the window; another did the same.

The third came galloping past.

I thrust my head out of the window.

"Walter!" I called.

He looked up.

"Hello, Nell!" he cried, waving his hat
around his head and galloping on.

He was on his way to his bride from whom
he had parted at the altar.

But even at this supreme moment of their
lives he and Betty were good enough to
remember me, and in a few hours after I hailed
him from the window Walter called.

That was all the comfort I got from any
friends returning from the field.

A little later there was a grand review of
Federal troops in Richmond, and I remember how
well-clad and sleek they were and how new and
glittering were their arms. Good boots, good hats,
a whole suit of clothes to every man - a long,
bright, prosperous-looking procession. On the
sidewalk a poor Confederate in rags and bootless,
stood looking wistfully on.

The next day I heard that General Rooney
Lee had arrived, and I went to see him. I was
shown up to his mother's room, and she told me
that he had not come, but was hourly expected.
When I called the next day I met him and Miss
Mildred Lee in the door. They were going out,
but the general stepped back with me into the
hall.

"I came to see if you could tell me anything
about Dan, general."

"Mrs. Grey," he said, "you know Dan as
well as I do. He isn't whipped yet. I told him it
was all foolishness, and that the war

He slipped back, put his hand in his pocket,
and took out a thin roll of bills, a very thin roll.

"Mrs. Grey," he said, "here is all the money
I have in the world, ten dollars in greenbacks.
Take half of it - I wish you would - it wouldn't
inconvenience me at all. I will make some more
soon, and then I will divide with you again until
Dan comes home."

I could hardly speak for tears. At that
moment I was richer than my general. I had at
home in gold and greenbacks more money than
General Lee.

"God bless you, general!" I managed to say.

"But really I don't need it. If I do really and truly
I will come to you for it."

Franklin Street wasn't a good place to cry in,
so I hurried home.

Still the days that passed did not bring me
Dan. I became thoroughly miserable. I sat in my
window and watched and was cross if anybody
spoke to me.

music-teacher, and he began apologies,
acknowledgments and what not in his dreadful
English.

"Madame, I haf no mooseek to you - not at
all. I haf one message of you to ze majaire. If
you not b'lief me," he fumbled in his pocket and
brought out a dirty bit of paper, "look at ze
cart - vat sall I call him? ze lettaire. If madame
will look - I beg ze pardon of madame - "

I snatched the paper out of his hand. And
then - I couldn't make it out. Written in the first
place with an indifferent pencil on a worn bit of
the poor paper of that day and carried in the little
Frenchman's very ragged and grimy pocket, the
scrawl was illegible. It had never been more than
a line of some five or six words. While I was
trying to make it out the little Frenchman
explained that it was merely a line introducing
himself as the bearer of a message.

What that message was I never did hear,
though the little Frenchman did his best to deliver
and I to receive it. I got enough out of him,
however, to know that Dan was well and on his
way to Richmond. I also understood

that he was not far from Richmond now,
but what was detaining him I could not make out,
though the little Frenchman, with many apologies,
conveyed the hint to me that it was a delicate
matter. After he was gone I wondered why I
was so stupid as not to get the little man's
address so that I could send some friends who
understood French after him. From what he had
said I had inferred that my husband would be
with me the following day. I watched in a fever
of impatience, but two days passed and no Dan.

The third night as I laid my aching head on
the pillow I said: "Mother, if he don't come
tomorrow, the next day I start out to look for him."
Do you know how it is to feel in your sleep
that some one is looking at you? This is the sort
of sensation that aroused me the next morning,
and I opened my eyes in the early dawn to find
my husband standing by the bed with clasped
hands looking down at me.

Ah, we were happy - we were happy!
Ragged, defeated, broken, we but had each other
and that was enough.

tell you. I must explain how Dan was dressed.
He wore a pair of threadbare gray trousers
patched with blue; they were much too short for
him, and there were holes which were not
patched at all; he had no socks on, but wore a
ragged shoe of one size on one foot, and on the
other a boot of another size and ragged too; he
had on a blue jacket much too small for him - it
was conspicuously too short, and there was a
wide margin between where it ended and his
trousers began, and he had on a calico shirt that
looked like pink peppermint candy. Set back on
his head was an old hat, shot nearly all to
pieces - you could look through the holes, and it
had tags hanging around where the brim had
been. He was a perfect old ragman except for
the very new pink shirt.

"My dear Dan," I said, "what a perfect
fright you are! What a dreadful ragtag and
bobtail!"

"Why, Nell," he said, "I thought these very
good clothes. What's missing, my dear? My suit
is very complete; whole trousers, jacket, new
shirt, hat on my head, even down to something on
both feet. Last

week I didn't have any shirt, nor any jacket to
speak of, and my trousers weren't patched and I
didn't have anything on my feet. One reason I
took so long to get here was because I was trying
to get a few clothes together - I wasn't dressed
to my taste, you see. It took much time and labor
to collect all this wearing apparel. I got first one
piece and then another, until I am as you see me,
fit to enter Richmond. Somebody stole my
trousers one morning - I was in an awful plight.
That was the time the little Frenchman passed
and I sent you a message. Did he tell you that I'd
get home as soon as I got another pair of trousers
if somebody didn't steal my jacket by that time?"

I was laughing and crying all the time he was
talking. When I pulled off boot and shoe I found
that he had spoken the truth in jest when he said
he had been walking barefoot nearly all the way.
His feet were sore. I had some good shoes for
him, and I got out an old civilian suit that he had
worn before the war. It didn't fit him now and
looked antiquated, but he donned it with great
satisfaction.

Then we went out shopping. It was shopping
in a city of ruins. As we walked along the streets
there were smoking pits on each side of us. Here
and there the remnants of what had been a store
enabled us to purchase shoes at one place and
the materials for two white shirts at another, and
to our great joy we found a hat for which he paid
two dollars, United States money.

We had nothing on which to begin life over
again, but we were young and strong, and began it
cheerily enough. We are prosperous now, our
heads are nearly white; little grandchildren cluster
about us and listen with interest to grandpapa's
and grandmamma's tales of the days when they
"fought and bled and died together." They can't
understand how such nice people as the Yankees
and ourselves ever could have fought each other.
"It doesn't seem reasonable," says Nellie the
third, who is engaged to a gentleman from Boston,
where we sent her to cultivate her musical talents,
but where she applied herself to other matters, "it
doesn't seem reasonable, grandmamma, when you
could just as easily have settled it all